Secretary-General to attend Ibero-American summit in Uruguay

United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan will leave tomorrow for Montevideo, Uruguay to attend the Ibero-American Summit, his office announced Tuesday.

He is also expected to have bilateral meetings with various leaders, including the President of Uruguay, Dr. Tabaré Vázquez, before returning to New York over the weekend, the spokesman’s office reported.

The summit, which Mr. Annan has addressed in previous years, is a forum for “political harmonization” among 21 Ibero-American countries – including Portugal, Spain and all the Hispano-Luso-American nations – which have a total population of over 489 million.

At last year’s summit Mr. Annan thanked Spain and Portugal for their commitment to double official development assistance by 2008 and reach the 0.7 per cent of GDP target by 2015.