British Council Leads UN Staff in Celebrating English Language Day

4 April 2018
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United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (Addis Ababa)

Addis Ababa — United Nations staff in Addis Ababa on Tuesday marked English Language Day with presentations from the British Council in Ethiopia on projects they are involved in, in particular providing language training and support for teachers within military and civilian institutions.

Mr. Peter Hare, Peacekeeping English Project Manager, made the presentations on Peacekeeping English Projects (PEP), a capacity building project with the Ethiopian Ministry of National Defence and Ethiopian Federal Police Commission to enhance their contribution to United Nations and African Union peacekeeping missions.

Mr. Hare also shared details of another British Council programme, the Language for Resilience project with refugee primary school teachers in Benishagul Gumuz, which is helping to upgrade teachers' pedagogical and English language skills.

"The project with the Ethiopian Ministry of National Defence and Federal Police Commission builds the capacity of the forces', ensuring they contribute effectively to multinational peacekeeping operations in support of the UK government's commitment to conflict prevention and stability," he said.

The Peacekeeping English Projects have been a central pillar in supporting potential troop and police contributing countries deploying on multinational peace support operations, especially in the Horn of Africa, Ethiopia being the leading contributor.

For his part, Mr. Ali Todaro, Chief of the Conference Management Section at the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), and also Focal Point for Multilingualism, said the ECA was celebrating the English Language Day for the first time in an effort to promote multilingualism as a core value of the United Nations, and to mainstream multilingualism in the activities of the Secretariat.

"This is not an event, it's a process which will see us continuing to work closely with the British Council and all the other embassies in expanding activities around commemorating the UN language days as we celebrate multilingualism and cultural diversity as well as promote equal use of all six official UN languages throughout the organization," said Mr. Todaro.

English Language Day is celebrated on 23 April at the United Nations, the date traditionally observed as both the birthday and date of death of William Shakespeare. The Day is the result of a 2010 initiative by the Department of Public Information, establishing language days for each of the organization's six official languages.

Under the initiative, UN duty stations around the world celebrate six separate days, each dedicated to one of the organization's six official languages.

The days are:

Arabic (18 December)

French (20 March)

Chinese (20 April)

English (23 April)

Spanish (23 April)

Russian (6 June)

English is one of the two working languages of the UN Secretariat and one of the organization's six official languages and has official or special status in at least 75 countries with a total population of over two billion.

Language Days at the UN aim to entertain as well as inform, with the goal of increasing awareness and respect for the history, culture and achievements of each of the six working languages among the UN community.

Read the original article on UNECA.

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