U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon joined other influential figures in Seoul on Wednesday for the opening of photo exhibition aimed at rallying support for the United Nations’ development goals.

Hosted by Yonhap News Agency, South Korea’s key wire service, the show features more than 80 award-winning works by photojournalists and freelancers in 71 countries. Their depictions of human suffering and environmental threats serve to highlight the U.N.’s eight Millennium Development Goals, which include freedom from extreme poverty and hunger, achievement of universal primary education and the eradication of diseases.

The exhibition is the first of its kind to be held in South Korea and displays the winning entries from last month’s Yonhap International Press Photo Awards, which received a total of 1,938 pieces, or 5,536 photographs.

The contest’s top prize went to Emilio Morenatti, a photojournalist for the Associated Press, for his photos of cholera victims in Haiti last year.

Other winners included Mohammad Moniruzzaman of The Daily Samakal; Bethany Clark, a freelance photographer; Alex Masi of Corbis; Nicolas Asfouri of Agence France-Presse; Hiroto Sekiguchi of The Yomiuri Shimbun; and Cho Young-ho of The Hankook Ilbo.

Their work showed a child laborer in a paint factory, a mother with her ill infant, seal-hunting in Greenland’s melting glaciers as well as other striking images from across the globe.

Ban, who arrived in Seoul on Tuesday, is visiting his home country for the first time since he was reelected in June to lead the global body for a second five-year term. At the opening ceremony in Culture Station Seoul 284, he was joined by some 150 other influential figures, including National Assembly Speaker Park Hee-tae, Prime Minister Kim Hwang-sik and Grand National Party leader Hong Joon-pyo.

The exhibition will open to the public on Thursday free of charge and run through Sept. 30 at the same venue.

Supported by the U.N., the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade and the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, it will also run from Aug. 22 to Sept. 9 at the U.N. Headquarters Visitors’ Lobby in New York and tour seven major South Korean cities, including Busan, Daegu and Gwangju, starting later this month.

Yonhap said it plans to hold the exhibition biennially and donate its proceeds to U.N. funds for disaster and poverty relief and environmental protection. 

(Yonhap News)