United Nations, Feb 24 (IANS) United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has signed the United Nations Global Counter-Terrorism Coordination Compact.
According to a statement on Friday, the Secretary-General said that the compact "establishes a set of guiding principles aimed at significantly improving the coordination and coherence of the United Nations system to support Member States on the implementation of the United Nations Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy", Xinhua reported.
"The Coordination Compact is an agreement between 36 United Nations entities engaged in providing support to Member States on how to counter and prevent acts of terrorism and violent extremism. It will be signed by the heads of these entities, as well as Interpol and the World Customs Organization, as a symbol of their commitment to coordinating activities at Headquarters and in the field. It also adopts a common framework for monitoring and evaluation which will help to show the impact of UN efforts in this area," the UN chief said.
"The principal aim of the United Nations Global Counter-Terrorism Coordination Compact is to ensure that the United Nations system can have a better impact and provide stronger and more efficient counter-terrorism capacity-building support to Member States," he concluded.
The UN General Assembly adopted the Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy on September 8, 2006. The strategy is a unique global instrument to enhance national, regional and international efforts to counter terrorism.
The adoption of the strategy fulfilled the commitment made by world leaders at the 2005 September Summit and builds on many of the elements proposed by the Secretary-General in his May 2, 2006 report, entitled Uniting against Terrorism: Recommendations for a Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy.
The year 2016 marked the 10th anniversary of the UN Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy.
The General Assembly reviews the Strategy every two years, making it a living document attuned to Member States' counter-terrorism priorities.
Guterres put plans in motion last year to develop a new UN system-wide Global Counter-Terrorism Coordination Compact. He will convene this year the first-ever UN summit of heads of counter-terrorism agencies with the aim of forging new partnerships and improve trust between organisations.
