Secretary-General's press statement at the Iraq Reconstruction Conference

Today, Kuwait assumes the leadership in convening the conference in solidarity with the people and the Government of Iraq.

But the response to this conference and to this appeal is an extraordinary proof of confidence in the Government and in the people of Iraq. The international community has shown the recognition that Iraq is on the right track for recovery and stabilization.

And the international community has shown its appreciation for the courage with which the Iraqi people have defeated Da’esh and terrorism, protecting not only themselves but protecting all of us, because terrorism is unfortunately a global phenomenon.

This creates the conditions for the Government of Iraq to be successful in implementation and its programme of recovery of the country, and this creates the conditions for the international community to be fully mobilized in support of the Iraqi people.

I want to also express my gratitude for the support given to the projects presented by the UN – namely the recovery and rehabilitation projects. This is something aimed at working very closely in cooperation with the Iraqi Government in support to the programmes of the Iraqi Government to accelerate the social dimension of recovery.

Just to give you an example, we are involved in 700 projects just in the city of Mosul, in which 10,000 Iraqis are directly cooperating. This to demonstrate that the whole of the international community needs to be mobilized to go on fully supporting the Iraqi Government and the Iraqi people to guarantee the full success of the stabilization of the country.

In a world where unfortunately good news is scarce, and in a region where unfortunately we see many situations getting worse, the fact that Iraq is on the right track and the fact that the international community has shown its confidence in Iraq is a very important piece of good news.

I want to once again strongly congratulate the Government of Iraq for the success in attracting such a high-level of confidence from the international community.