Yonhap News Agency will hold an international press photo exhibition later this year in an effort to help the United Nations achieve its anti-poverty goals.

The exhibition, scheduled for Seoul in August and New York in September, will feature photos selected through a global contest that runs until May 31.

Participants should submit their entries at http://www.yippa.net. Prize winners will be notified by e-mail and telephone, with their names to be posted on the website.

The exhibition, whose proceeds will be used for the U.N.’s humanitarian aid efforts, is designed to attract the world’s attention to the U.N. programs for the maintenance of peace, the eradication of poverty and the protection of the environment.

In September 2000, the 191 U.N. member states adopted eight anti-poverty goals called “The Millennium Development Goals” (MDGs) to improve women’s and children’s health and reduce poverty, hunger and disease by 2015.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon promised to actively support the exhibition in a meeting with Park Jung-chan, president and CEO of Yonhap News, in November 2010, saying the exhibition is a well-timed event to spread the purpose of the MDGs.

Ban, a former foreign minister of South Korea, plans to attend the opening ceremony of the exhibition in Seoul. 

(Yonhap News)