The Security Council today called on the international community to support the preparation of elections in Burundi next year after the top United Nations official in the small Central African country warned that a lack of funding was challenging the "significant advances" already made after decades of ethnic and factional war.
"An amount of $3 million still need to be urgently mobilized before the end of December to help the National Independent Electoral Commission to attend to the most pressing tasks under its mandate," Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's Executive Representative Youssef Mahmoud told the 15-member body, stressing that pledges so far made had yet to be disbursed in good time.
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