The visit to the United Nations of a delegation of the Community led by Marco Impagliazzo is underway in New York. In the first meeting, the Secretary General of the United Nations, Antonio Guterres, expressed sincere admiration for the faithful and patient work of the Community in the world's crisis scenarios, particularly in Africa: 'The UN needs you for peace'.
Gutteres' account of the Community's peace initiatives in South Sudan, Tchad and the Central African Republic aroused great interest. Marco Impagliazzo reiterated the spirit of complementarity with which Sant'Egidio works every day for peace in harmony with the United Nations.
"The Community remains in crisis situations even when scenarios seem blocked. It takes patience, time and listening to reality to achieve positive results because peace is a artisanal work". The visit continued with a meeting with the Under Secretary General, Li Junhua from China, who heads UN DESA, the directorate that deals with economic and social development. He was shown the DREAM and Bravo! programmes, which are active in several African countries.
Ambassador Li expressed his sincerest appreciation for these programmes, which have a positive impact on social and health development in African countries and intervene in people's real problems. For these reasons, he called for more intensive cooperation on the ground with the United Nations. Afterwards, the delegation met with the Assistant Secretary General, Elisabeth Spehar, from Canada, who heads the Peacebuilding Commission, with whom they discussed the perspective of peacebuilding and peacekeeping in crisis areas, starting with the role of civil society and religious communities.
