New York, September 22, 2017: Malawi’s President Prof. Arthur Peter Mutharika Friday morning met the new United Nations Secretary General, António Guterres, at UN Headquarters Building in New York.
President Mutharika had an audience with Guterres before signing a visitors’ book and a traditional photo shoot heads of state have with incumbent top boss for the world body.
During their meeting, the two leaders discussed a number of issues related to Malawi and the UN.
According to a daily readout from the office of UN spokesperson, Guterres congratulated Malawi for “achieving fantastic progress in the area of HIV/AIDS.”
“The Secretary-General welcomed Malawi’s response to HIV/AIDS and encouraged further progress. He also commended Malawi on troop contributions to UN peace operations,” reads part of the statement.
President Mutharika acknowledged the strong UN response to the El Niño drought in the [southern African] region, according to the statement.
The meeting between the two was the first one since Guterres became UN Secretary-General on 1 January 2017, following his formal election by the UN General Assembly on 13 October, 2016.
The 68-year-old Portuguese diplomat and former prime minister of Portugal is the ninth secretary general of UN.
He succeeded Ban Ki-moon, a South Korean diplomat, who served from 2007 to 2016.