Slovakia is to make a voluntary contribution to the activities of the UN's Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) amounting to 10,000 Swiss francs (€6,200) this year, according to a proposal approved at the government session on April 23.
Slovakia has not contributed funds to any of the six voluntarily-financed UN human rights funds before. The only Slovak donation to the UN human rights activities was a $3,000 contribution to a conference on racism in 2001, the TASR newswire wrote.
The Foreign Ministry has justified the donation by pointing to Slovakia's non-permanent membership of the UN Security Council in 2006-07, which put Slovakia among the important players in the sphere of security, peace and human rights. UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour regularly asks UN-member states for voluntary donations. She made a request for funds to Slovak Foreign Minister Ján Kubiš during a session of the Council for Human Rights in Geneva in March of this year.
The post of UN High Commissioner is the most senior in the UN concerning human rights. OHCHR is based in Geneva, with another office in New York. The activities of the Office of the High Commissioner are financed from the regular UN budget, along with voluntary donations. TASR
Compiled by Zuzana Vilikovská from press reports
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