The High-level week of the 77th Session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), has begun.

The high-level week began on Monday with several bilateral, plurilateral, and multilateral engagements scheduled to be held within the week.

Minister of Foreign Affairs Abdulla Shahid is leading the Maldives delegation at the high-level week. He is accompanied by several high-level government officials, including Minister of Environment, Climate Change and Technology Aminath Shauna.

The UNGA debate will be held from Tuesday to Saturday.

Held under the theme, “A watershed moment: transformative solutions to interlocking challenges”, the debate will see many heads of state and government and heads of national delegations delivering statements.

The Maldivian foreign minister will be delivering his statement on September 23.

The high-level week will also see FM Shahid holding several bilateral meetings advocating for Maldives’ candidature to the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) for the term 2023-2025.

The elections for the UNHRC are slated for October 2022 with Maldives competing against Kyrgyz Republic, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bahrain, Viet Nam and the Republic of Korea for the four seats allocated to the Asia-Pacific Group.

The island nation was elected twice consecutively, previously from 2011-2016.

This time international discourse was initiated on the link between climate change and human rights.

Further, the high-level week will see meetings and events centered on the Sustainable Development Goals, education, climate action, the situation in Ukraine, ending the Covid-19 pandemic and on the elimination of nuclear weapons.