Ambassador Ramil Hasanov Secretary General of the Turkic Council addressed the audience at the opening ceremony of the Directors-General Forum that was held on 3 November 2016 in Dubai within the framework of the Global South-South Development Expo 2016.
Jorge Chediek, Envoy of the UN Secretary General in South-South Cooperation and Director of UNOSSC, Richard Nduhuura, President of the UN High Level Committee on South-South Cooperation, Yasushi Kanzaki, Vice President of JICA and Dr. Meshgan Al Awar, Secretary General of Zayed International Foundation for the Environment were among the other esteemed keynote speakers at the opening ceremony.
In his address, underlining that global challenges that the world face today require collective actions, Secretary General Hasanov expressed that the dynamic, comprehensive and innovative approach of the South-South and triangular cooperation presents an important tool to cope with these challenges and to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. Expressing that the Turkic Council implements the cooperative and result-oriented spirit of this approach, it locates the tools such as human and productive capacity-building, experience and knowledge-sharing and exchange of good practices at the core of its activities in a wide range of areas where it operates. In this regard, he gave the example of the tourism vocational programmes on service sector that are carried out through the Turkic Council by Turkey as a transfer of knowledge and experience for Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. Stressing the importance that the Turkic Council attaches utmost importance to cooperate with relevant regional and international organizations to promote South-South and triangular cooperation he referred to the Memoranda of Understandings that the Council have with UN Office for South South Cooperation and reiterated the commitment of the Council to implement them through result-oriented projects for the benefit of the Global South.
At the end of his speech, Secretary General Hasanov gave the message of "actions speak louder than words" and highlighted the necessity to take the necessary immediate measures towards the succesful implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
Turkic Council Chief of Protocol Emre Yurdakul and Project Director Pelin Musabay Baki accompanied Secretary General Hasanov during the meeting.
