Press Release

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Gunnar Myrdal Exhibition

Palais des Nations (E building, third floor), Geneva
25-27 April 2007

Geneva, 20 April 2007 -- The United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) is celebrating its Sixtieth Anniversary in 2007. On that occasion the UNECE is organizing an exhibition on Gunnar Myrdal, the first Executive Secretary of the Commission.

After a successful academic career, Gunnar Myrdal became Sweden’s Minister of Commerce, a position that he left to accept his appointment as Executive Secretary of the UNECE in 1947. Ten years later, he left the Commission to direct a comprehensive study of economic trends and policies in South-Asian countries for the Twentieth Century Fund. He was rewarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics in 1974. Presenting an extensive documentation of letters and photos, the exhibition focuses on the hard work of this Swedish citizen from the beginning of the Commission in 1947 to his resignation ten years later. According to Myrdal himself, the biggest achievements of the Commission lay in the fact that it survived in spite of the difficulties it faced, that it helped European reconstruction, and that it maintained the dialogue between East and West during the Cold War.

The UNECE is also organizing an exhibition on its work and achievements. The UNECE is one of the five regional commissions of the United Nations. It is the forum where the countries of Western, Central and Eastern Europe, Central Asia and North America – 56 countries in all – come together to forge the tools of their economic cooperation. That cooperation concerns such areas as sustainable energy, environment, housing and land management, population, statistics, timber, trade, transport, and economic cooperation and integration.

For further information please contact:

UNECE Information Service
Palais des Nations
CH - 1211 Geneva 10, Switzerland

Phone: +41(0)22 917 44 44
Fax: +41(0)22 917 05 05
E-mail: [email protected]
Website: http://www.unece.org