Director-General's remarks at the Closing of the GIMUN meeting “Ensuring food security in areas affected by Climate Change”

Closing of the GIMUN meeting “Ensuring food security in areas affected by Climate Change”

Monday, 27 October 2025, at 5.00 p.m.
Room VIII, Palais des Nations

Dear Students,

It is a pleasure to speak to you at the closing of this year’s GIMUN Conference.

Today, the Palais des Nations was animated by your energy, your ideas, and your passion for building a better future. I want to sincerely thank the entire GIMUN team - your dedication as a student-run organization has made this event both inspiring and deeply meaningful.

At the United Nations Office at Geneva, we remain steadfast in our belief in the power of multilateralism. For 80 years now, Geneva has served as a beacon for global collaboration. Today, more than 40 UN entities, together with 187 permanent missions and UN Member States, academic institutions, civil society, and private sector partners, work side by side, here, to advance peace, human rights, health, sustainable development, and humanitarian action.

Your chosen theme, “Ensuring food security in areas affected by Climate Change,” could not be more timely and relevant. Climate change threatens harvests, livelihoods, and access to food. Yet, as your debates have surely shown, solutions exist: climate-smart agriculture, resilient supply chains, sustainable water management, and policies that protect the most vulnerable.

Geneva’s unique ecosystem plays a pivotal role in shaping these solutions. For example, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), based here, provides the science that guides global policy. And through the convening power of the United Nations, experts and policymakers come together to turn that science into concrete solutions.

Model United Nations exercises like this one are powerful reminders of what collaboration can achieve. They underscore the opportunities before us — to integrate climate adaptation into agriculture, to support small farmers, to harness indigenous knowledge, and to strengthen resilience through innovation. These are not merely theoretical discussions - they are at the very heart of the 2030 Agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals.

You are changemakers — and by gathering here, you embody the very mission of UN Geneva: to bridge generations, amplify youth voices, and ensure that all perspectives count in shaping global governance.

As we close this session, I invite you to carry your ideas forward as architects of transformation — through internships, volunteering, research, policymaking, and to engage with the many international organizations, permanent missions, NGOs, and academic institutions that make Geneva such a vibrant hub for global action.

Let me conclude with a message of both challenge and hope:

Challenge, because the work ahead is immense. Tackling climate change, achieving food security, and ensuring no one is left behind will demand courage, perseverance, and cooperation.

Hope, because your generation gives us confidence that change is possible - that our collective response to these global challenges can be guided by compassion, ingenuity and solidarity.

Thank you for your dedication, your curiosity, and your passion.