Excellencies, Ladies and gentlemen, Dear colleagues and friends, Welcome to the first Annual Forum of Beneficiaries of Technical Assistance, which we are convening together with our partner, the State of Qatar.

I would like to start by expressing my sincere appreciation to the Government of the State of Qatar for its generous hospitality and for hosting this important event.

I am honoured that His Excellency Mr. Soltan bin Saad Al-Muraikhi, State Minister for Foreign Affairs of the State of Qatar, is with us today.

I am also pleased to be joined by His Excellency Major General Abdulaziz Al-Ansari, Director of the Department of International Cooperation and Chairman of the National CounterTerrorism Committee at the Ministry of Interior of Qatar.

I would like to welcome His Excellency Hassan Al Thawadi, Secretary General of the Supreme Committee for Delivery and Legacy, as well as my fellow colleagues, Under-SecretaryGeneral Cristina Duarte, Special Adviser on Africa to the United Nations Secretary-General, and Mr. Weixong Chen, Acting Executive Director of the Counter-Terrorism Committee Executive Directorate, with whom I have the pleasure to deliver opening remarks.

I also welcome my colleague His Excellency Mr. Miguel Ángel Moratinos, United Nations Under-Secretary-General and High Representative for the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations, and Her Excellency Ms. Alya Ahmed Saif Al-Thani, Ambassador and Permanent Representative of the State of Qatar to the United Nations, who are joining us at this opening session.

And my sincere appreciation to all our distinguished speakers and participants joining us today, both in-person and virtually from around the world, as we launch this important initiative with Qatar, which we would like to hold on a regular basis.

Dear participants,

Over the past few years, despite the operational challenges imposed by the coronavirus and its variants, the United Nations Office of Counter-Terrorism has continued to deliver on its mandated functions of policy leadership, coordination, capacity-building, and visibility, advocacy and resource mobilization, to support Member States and other beneficiaries in their efforts to prevent and counter terrorism.

This would not have been possible without the strong political, financial and technical support of the State of Qatar, a leading donor to the United Nations Trust Fund for CounterTerrorism.

We are also grateful to our 34 other donors, in particular the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, as well as our national, regional and international partners, either benefiting from or providing assistance to our programmes and activities, whose support have been crucial in our implementation.

Thanks to Qatar’s generous contribution, the United Nations Global Counter-Terrorism Coordination Compact, with its 43 member and observer entities, eight thematic working groups, 131 participating Member States and renewed focus on field engagement, continues to serve as the largest United Nations coordination framework to support the implementation of the Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy and relevant Security Council resolutions.

The Counter-Terrorism Coordination Platform, maintained with Qatar’s support, now benefits from 914 focal points of Counter-Terrorism Compact entities, participating Member States, the European Union, and the Global Counterterrorism Forum.

Our partnership with Qatar paved the way for our enhanced presence in the field, which enables us to deliver tailored, impactful and cost-effective assistance to beneficiaries. We have established and operationalized the International Hub on Behavioural Insights to Counter Terrorism and the United Nations Office of Counter-Terrorism Programme Office on Parliamentary Engagement in Preventing and Countering Terrorism, both of which are fully funded by Qatar, for which we are very grateful.

Qatar’s support also extends to our Programme Office in Budapest hosting our global programmes on Countering Terrorist Travel and Threat Assessment Models for Aviation Security, as well as to our Programme Office in Madrid, which supports the implementation of our other global programmes on the Protection of Vulnerable Targets, Sports Security and Prevention of Violent Extremism, and Support to the Victims of Terrorism.

We will leverage our presence in Doha this week on the occasion of our Beneficiaries Forum to hold a field retreat that will bring together colleagues from all UNOCT programme offices around the world to assess our field-based implementation.

All of our flagship programmes that I have just outlined, in addition to other innovative programmes launched last year with Qatar’s support, such as the global programmes on unmanned aircraft systems and counter-terrorism investigations, continue to deliver tangible results.

For example, the Countering Terrorist Travel Programme currently has 51 beneficiaries, with 12 countries joining in 2021, and continues to support technical implementation with the United Nations ‘goTravel’ software now in use by 21 countries.

Ladies and gentlemen, Dear colleagues,

The success of our implementation can only be measured through an honest and inclusive assessment and evaluation of impact of our interventions, grounded on transparency, accountability, and sustainability. These principles are at the heart of UNOCT’s results-based delivery.

The Beneficiaries Forum is the first large-scale UNOCT event, which brings together beneficiaries, providers and donors of technical assistance, to assess the progress and performance of the policy, coordination and capacity-building work carried out with Counter-Terrorism Compact entities and our national, regional and global partners.

Over the course of the next two days, we will hear directly from you, the beneficiaries, and implementing partners, to assess where we are and what can be done better.

Under the six sessions, we will address the strategic thematic and geographic priorities for counter-terrorism programming; coordination and coherence of multilateral efforts; opportunities and challenges in the delivery of assistance; and field-based implementation.

We will hear beneficiary perspectives and assessments of the impact of our technical and capacity-building support, as well as their priorities and needs.

We will ‘deep dive’ into the policy, coordination and programmatic activities implemented in close collaboration with our Counter-Terrorism Compact partners with the financial support of the State of Qatar, and report on the outcomes and the vision forward.

Based on your insights and assessments, the Forum will produce an outcome document with guiding principles, good practices and recommendations for programme design and implementation to provide overall programmatic direction and approach to impactful delivery and resource utilization.

Let me close by thanking all our distinguished speakers and participating Member States, international and regional organizations, and civil society partners for their interest in the Forum and contributions to its success.

I look forward to a productive event. Thank you