B (19:08)
So let's start with Yunusa. Yunusa is, Is an office of the Secretariat. So I report to the Secretary General. And we're so we're, we're not a specialized entity like WHO or FAO or itu. We're not a. We're not a separate agency or entity as such. We are part of the Secretariat, but it is a standalone office within the Secretariat. There are a few of them and we are, it's the global hub for space cooperation law capacity building. It was stood up back in, I think it was 1958, simply to provide secretariat services to the Committee. The Committee is made up of member States. The Committee was also set up back at that time. And so our function back in those days was purely to provide secretariat services to organize the Committee, convene it, you know, send out agendas, send out invitations and so on and so forth. It is over the years that we have acquired greater mandates. In 1972, we acquired a mandate on space applications to promote space applications for the benefit, for the peaceful uses of space applications for the benefit of Member States and all the different policy objectives. That was way before the Millennium Development Goals, let alone the Sustainable Development Goals. And we, I think the main things that we do are convening as the United Nations. Our greatest power is being a neutral and trusted body to convene. So we keep Member States at the table and we bring them around the table. We bring more and more Member States around the table. We provide capacity building services in space law and in accessing satellite imagery, satellite data, training member States how to use it, helping states put law and policy into place, helping them understand why the treaties are relevant for them. What's the benefit of that? How to establish a space agency? How to establish a regulator? Right now we have more than 60 countries who are asking for these services. And a lot of them are we want to put a spaceport on our territory. What do we need to do in legal, regulatory terms to make that happen? So also we have, for example, an Access to Space for all program. We've helped at least five countries launch their very, very first satellites into space. So developing countries who may not otherwise have certainly not the national capacity and knowledge, but the opportunity and the capabilities to actually build and launch satellites. We have programs where we work with space agencies and even companies who offer their expertise and kind of a handholding role to teams from, to allow them to establish themselves and develop those competencies. So very, very inspiring stories that come from our office. It's a really tiny office because there's a liquidity crisis on and there's a whole streamlining of the UN going on. We have just been reduced from 25 people on regular UN budget to 21. So it's completely not intuitive at all. When you think of space, when you think of the space sector and everything that's happening, it's Dyn dynamic, it's moving, it's growing, growing, growing. The office on the other hand, is kind of shrinking. But I'm used to working for very, very small organizations, but punching way, way above our weight. And that's what we do. There's a lot you can do when you're just smart about it. So, so that so much for Yunusa. Oh, one thing I should mention, Space sustainability is a really big issue right now. We maintain a UN register of all objects that are launched into outer space. This is a treaty obligation on the Secretary General self, which is executed by our office. This is a really critical tool for transparency, especially when there's objects landing back on Earth and countries are wondering, okay, who does this belong to? How do we contact the. The owner? What? You know, the register is like an address book of who owns what in space. And that's something that we maintain. So we really work across legal, technical policy domains to support different governments in different space related matters. One other thing probably I should mention, with so many natural disasters happening and increasing, so many increasing severe weather events on all continents, like even in the middle of Europe where we are, and you don't expect these things to happen, they always happen somewhere else, right? Well, no, they're happening everywhere now. We have a program called UN Spider. That's space based information for disaster and emergency response. And that is where we facilitate access to satellite imagery and data. We train member states how to use it. We make sure they know how to trigger the charter on space and major disasters and so on and so forth. Lots of other programs, Space for youth, Space for women, Space for climate change, the Space for Ocean alliance that we've just recently established with other space agencies. Lots and lots of programs that are all to do with the peaceful and inclusive use of space applications, technology, data services and so on. Copus on the other hand, is the committee. So that is, is the seat of global governance for space. It's where all of the space treaties have been born from. So we have six decades of governance which stems from copus. It is a multilateral forum. Consensus takes time to build. So it takes some time. It is slow. We have the long term sustainability guidelines which were adopted in 2019. They took a decade to negotiate, but at least they embody the political will, the shared political will of all the member states or members of the committee, that's 110 member states right now. We are secretariat to that. But the Committee has moved forward from treaties. We don't live at a time where you can successfully negotiate a binding treaty today. The geopolitics of our world will not allow that. But the Committee has evolved. It's moved from treaties to principles, to guidelines, to recommendations and, and ultimately power to enforce, power to implement resides with member States. And I think that reflects very much the world in which we live in. Member states don't want to renounce power to some multilateral body. They want sovereignty. They want their own ability to implement to suit their domestic and national points of view and, and the state of evolution of their own economies and so on. And so the corpus really reflects that in the way it works. We are doing a lot of, yeah, it's like capacity building, but for delegates. So we're in Vienna. The member state delegates that come here, we've just entered two weeks of our scientific and technical subcommittee. But the diplomats here in Vienna, they have to interface with many different UN agencies and entities. You have nuclear. Here we have the Preparatory Commission for Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. We have iaea, the International Atomic Energy Agency. Here we have unido, that's the United Nations Industrial Development Organization. You have unodc, the Office of Drugs and Crime. And then you have space. These are all very specialized areas, but different areas. And the diplomats here have to deal with all of them. So space is only one, one small piece of their portfolios. So it's very important that we make sure that they are informed and educated repeatedly as the space sector evolves. And so I've come to the UN from industry. Many people have been in the UN for like decades. They're really UN people. I'm trying to become one, but I'm also trying to open the eyes of this, of this system which has worked in one way for so long, and make them realize that when it comes to space, you're not going to be able to take efficiency, effective decisions and have valuable outcomes that you can implement unless you take informed decisions. And they necessarily must be informed also by industry, who are the ones facing the brunt of the operational realities, collision risk, the need for coordination, the need to share information, and so on and so forth. So our role, our capacity building role is also turning inwards towards Vienna and the committee that we serve, and not just outwards to member states and their local needs. It's twofold.
