ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL COUNCIL SUSPENDS 1997 SUBSTANTIVE SESSION AT GENEVA

Press Release
ECOSOC/5740

ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL COUNCIL SUSPENDS 1997 SUBSTANTIVE SESSION AT GENEVA

(Reissued as received.)

GENEVA, (UN Information Service) -- The Economic and Social Council suspended its 1997 substantive work today, following a four-week session at Geneva which gave particular attention to "fostering an enabling environment for development" -- and how that goal might be affected by changes in the world economic system and by United Nations reforms.

Because the Council did not entirely exhaust its agenda, it will resume its work in New York in the autumn on dates yet to be finalized.

Providing effective encouragement for development -- and the coordination and funding necessary to do so -- was the topic of the session's three-day "high-level segment", a series of meetings at which many Government were represented at the ministerial level.

Secretary-General Kofi Annan told the group shortly after the opening of the session that the primary mission of the United Nations remained development and that the reform process being carried out would be judged to no small extent by how well it strengthened the ability of the United Nations to promote economic and social progress and to address, through development the root causes of poverty and conflict.

There also was a panel discussion -- termed a "policy dialogue" -- featuring Michel Camdessus, Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF); Renata Regear, Director-General of the World Trade Organization (WHO); Rubens Ricupero, Secretary-General of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), and Jean-François Rischard, Vice-President of Finance and Private-Sector Development of the World Bank.

Numerous country representatives decried a decline in core funding for United Nations development activities, and a similar drop in general resources given for official development assistance (ODA) -- an Indonesian delegate said it was at its lowest point in 10 years, "with bleak prospects for the future".

A resolution adopted towards the end of the session called for "the developed countries, in particular those whose overall performance was not commensurate with their capacity... to increase substantially their official development assistance, including contributions to the operational activities of the United Nations system". It also was claimed repeatedly by representatives of the world's poorer countries that without such aid their nations would be further marginalized as better-off States charged ahead on the wave of the rapidly expanding global economy.

Also discussed at length during the month-long session -- and coming up under a number of agenda items -- were efforts by the United Nations and its specialized agencies to coordinate their activities and programmes related to development to avoid overlapping and ensure that the most was made of available resources. Indeed, Mr. Annan, in his address, said one aim of his reform package was to produce an "efficiency dividend" that would allow redeployment of resources accruing from administrative savings to development-related activities. The following week, members of the Council watched a live satellite transmission of the session of the General Assembly at which the Secretary-General unveiled the second stage of the reform scheme.

The Council, with the millennium approaching, recommended to the General Assembly the declaration of several "international years". It called for the year 2000 to be proclaimed both the "international year of thanksgiving" and the "international year for the culture of peace"; for 2001 to be named "international year of volunteers", and for establishment of an "international year of mountains".

During a four-day "coordination segment" the group debated strategies for ensuring equal treatment of women -- termed "mainstreaming the gender perspective into all policies and programmes of the United Nations system" -- and worldwide efforts to provide sufficient supplies of freshwater. Agreed conclusions were adopted on both topics.

And, as in previous years, the Council reviewed and adopted a long series of resolutions and decisions recommended to it by subsidiary bodies, including the Commission on Human Rights.

In a closing statement, Council Vice-President Anwarul Karim Chowdhury (Bangladesh) termed the session "highly productive and successful", among other things because members of the Council had shown "an unfailing willingness to work together and reach agreements on many difficult issues". One notable feature of the meetings was that many occasions were provided for informal, interactive •get-togethers• and free-flowing dialogue and exchanges; a working breakfast held with the Secretary-General set an important tradition that should be continued, Mr. Chowdhury said. He also noted that there had

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been a series of useful panel discussions and that for the first time the Council had succeeded in adopting agreed conclusions on the theme of its high-level segment.

Council Acts on Broad Range of Questions

A number of resolutions and decisions were introduced and acted upon during the Council session.

In a resolution operational activities of the United Nations for international development cooperation: follow-up to policy recommendations of the General Assembly, the Council, among other things, urged the developed countries, in particular those whose overall performance was not commensurate with their capacity, taking into account established official development assistance targets and their current levels of contribution, to increase substantially their official development assistance, including contributions to the operational activities of the United Nations system and for the effective implementation of the outcomes of the major United Nations international conferences. It also requested the Secretary-General to update proposals for funding modalities within the context of efforts to provide United Nations operational activities with resources, in particular core resources, on a predictable, continuous, and assured basis.

It urged co-sponsors of the Joint and Co-Sponsored United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS to strengthen their commitment to the response to the epidemic by integrating HIV/AIDS components throughout their operational activities; and urged all donors to continue their support and those not contributing substantially to increase their support of the Programme.

It decided to establish an ad hoc open-ended intergovernmental forum on forests, that its first organizational session should be held in New York from 1 to 3 October 1997; and that it should hold three substantive sessions and report to the Commission on Sustainable Development in 2000.

The Council adopted a resolution on integrated and coordinated implementation and follow-up of the major United Nations conferences and summits which decided to convene a session of the Council immediately after its organizational session of 1998, of two or three days duration, to further consider the subject.

It urged Member States, other entities of the United Nations system and relevant intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations to continue efforts to implement effectively the United Nations guidelines for consumer protection and to continue further work on the elaboration of guidelines to cover sustainable consumption patterns and other areas. The Council requested

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the Secretary-General to undertake this work through the convening of an interregional expert group meeting to be financed by extra budgetary resources.

The Council called for further efforts at international cooperation in the field of informatics, and requested the President of the Council to convene the Ad Hoc Open-ended Working Group on Informatics for one more year to, among other things, design an overall information-management strategy for the United Nations system.

It recommended by a roll-call vote of 28 in favour, 0 opposed, with 18 abstaining, that, among other things, all Governments intensify their efforts in the specialized agencies and other organizations of the United Nations system to accord priority to the question of providing assistance to the peoples of non-self-governing territories.

It passed, on a roll-call vote of 43 in favour, 1 opposed, with 2 abstaining, a resolution on permanent sovereignty over national resources in the occupied Palestinian and other Arab territories which, among other things, demanded that the Israeli occupation force cease its measures of collective punishment against the Palestinian people, in particular the closure of the occupied Palestinian territory.

It also called for continued progress on a Europe-Africa permanent link through the Strait of Gibraltar; sought enhanced participation of non-governmental organizations accredited to the Fourth World Conference on Women in the Work of the Commission on the Status of Women, non-governmental organizations accredited to the World Summit for Social Development in the work of the Commission on Social Development, and non-governmental organizations accredited to the International Conference on Population and Development in the work of the Commission on Population and Development; renewed the mandate of the Intergovernmental Working Group of Experts on International Standards of Accounting and Reporting; adopted measures on the first regional meeting convened by the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean to evaluate the World Summit for Social Development; on follow-up to the International Conference on Population and Development; on the United Nations University; on eradication of poverty; on integrated and coordinated implementation and follow-up of the major United Nations conferences and summits; on and on a provisional calendar of conferences and meetings for 1998 and 1999 in the economic, social, and related fields.

The Council decided to defer a draft resolution on the participation of NGOs in the General Assembly, pending the outcome of deliberations on this issue at the fifty-second session of the General Assembly, but not later than the 1998 Organizational Session of the Council.

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High-level Segment

The Council adopted agreed conclusions on the theme of "fostering an enabling environment for development: financial flows, including capital flows; investment; trade. The conclusions noted that while the current global economic environment was favourable, growth was not spread widely enough and the gap between developed and developing countries remained unacceptably wide. Although each country had the primary responsibility for its own development, international cooperation and partnership had a vital role in creating a favourable climate in which capital flows, investment and trade could flourish. An international enabling environment also required coordination of macroeconomic policies by the international community which fostered conditions of stability, predictability and growth in the world economy, stable exchange rates, low interest rates and low fiscal deficits, as well as trade liberalization and other conditions.

The conclusions noted that democracy, respect for all human rights and fundamental freedoms, including the right to development, transparent and accountable governance and administration in all sectors of society, and effective participation by civil society, were an essential part of the necessary foundations for the realization of social and people-centred sustainable development; that there was a need for an international dialogue on issues of policy coherence, and that one of the Council's high-level meetings with the Bretton Woods institutions and the World Trade Organization should be devoted to this topic. The conclusions stressed that official development assistance (ODA) remained an essential source of external funding and its overall decline was a cause for serious concern; moreover, a significant proportion of ODA was funding emergency relief, affecting its availability for long-term development needs. It was important to reverse the overall decline in ODA flows and achieve internationally agreed targets as soon as possible. On the external debt situation, there was an urgent need for effective, equitable, development-oriented and durable solutions to the debt and debt servicing problems of developing countries. Another challenge for the international community was to encourage capital and investment flows in the form of foreign direct investment to a broader range of developing countries.

Summarizing three days of debate on the topic of "fostering an enabling environment for development", which included an address by the Secretary-General and a panel discussion with the heads of international financial and development institutions, Council President Vladimir Galuska (Czech Republic) noted that over 70 delegations had spoken and that among an apparent "broad consensus on sound macroeconomic policies" at the national level the top priority was creating job growth. He added that it also was agreed, among other things, that on the international level official development assistance continued to be essential for developing countries.

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Coordination Segment

In agreed conclusions on mainstreaming the gender perspective into all policies and programmes in the United Nations system, the Council recommended that the General Assembly draw the attention of the United Nations system to the need for such mainstreaming in all areas of work, in particular the areas of macroeconomic questions, operational activities for development, poverty eradication, human rights, humanitarian assistance, budgeting, disarmament, peace and security, and legal and political matters. Intergovernmental bodies should monitor this mainstreaming. The heads of the specialized agencies were encouraged to establish accountability of senior managers for mainstreaming.

In agreed conclusions on coordination of the policies and activities of the specialized agencies and other bodies of the United Nations system related to freshwater, including clean and safe water supply and sanitation, the Council noted with great concern that more than one-fifth of the world's population did not have access to safe drinking water and that more than one half of humanity lacked adequate sanitation. The Council stressed the seriousness of the capacity-building problem in developing countries and urged the organizations of the United Nations system to assign high priority to programmes and activities geared to the provision of support in this respect. It called for technical assistance to developing countries and said there was a need for an update and reassessment of the water resources of the world.

General segment

As part of its consideration of social, humanitarian, and human rights questions, the Council, based on the recommendations of the Commission on Human Rights, acted on a number of resolutions and decisions. The Council:

-- authorized sessions for the open-ended working group on a draft optional protocol to the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment or Punishment; for the open-ended inter-sessional working group to elaborate a draft declaration in accordance with paragraph five of General Assembly resolution 49/214 of 23 December 1994; for the working group on a draft declaration on the right and responsibility of individuals, groups, and organs of society to promote and protect universally recognized human rights and fundamental freedoms; for a second workshop on a permanent forum for indigenous people in the United Nations system; for the Working Group on indigenous populations of the Subcommission on Prevention and Discrimination and Protection of Minorities;

-- established a working group of five intergovernmental experts to gather information on existing obstacles to full and effective protection of the human rights of migrants and elaborate recommendations to strengthen promotion, protection, and implementation of these rights.

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-- approved, by a roll-call vote of 24 in favour, 19 opposed, with 8 abstaining, establishment of a unit for the promotion of economic, social, and cultural rights, and in particular the implementation of the right to development, bearing in mind the aspects relating to the debt burden of the developing countries.

-- requested the Secretary-General to publish the final report of the Special Rapporteur on human rights and extreme poverty and to convey the final report to the General Assembly.

-- requested the Secretary-General to submit reports to the General Assembly and to the Commission on progress towards realization of the rights set forth in the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights, and special problems faced by developing countries to achieve these human rights.

-- asked the Secretary-General to provide all necessary assistance to the Special Rapporteur to enable him to submit an interim report on the implementation of the Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Intolerance and Discrimination.

-- extended the mandate of the Special Rapporteur on independence and impartiality of the judiciary, jurors and assessors and the independence of lawyers, for three years; extended the mandate of the Special Rapporteur on the elimination of violence against women for another three years; extended for three years the mandate of the Working Group on the question of arbitrary detention; extended by a roll-call vote of 24 in favour, 6 opposed, with 18 abstaining, the mandate of the Special Representative on the situation of human rights in Iran for a further year; extended the mandate of the Special Rapporteur on the human rights situation in Bosnia Herzegovina, the Republic of Croatia and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro) to focus on prevention and reporting of violations of, and lack of action to protect, all human rights and fundamental freedoms by Government authorities. It also endorsed the Commission's decision to extend for one year the mandate of the Special Rapporteur, as revised.

-- extended the mandate of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Zaire for one year; extended by a roll-call vote of 31 in favour, 3 opposed, with 14 abstaining, the mandate of the Special Rapporteur on human rights in Sudan for an additional year; extended the mandate of the Special Rapporteur on human rights in Iraq for a year; extended, by a roll-call vote of 20 in favour, 8 opposed, with 21 abstaining, the mandate of the Special Rapporteur for Cuba for one year; extended the mandate of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar for one year; extended the mandate of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Afghanistan for one year; extended the mandate of the Special

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Rapporteur on human rights in Equatorial Guinea for one year; extended for two years the mandate of the Special Rapporteur on traditional practices affecting the health of women and children.

-- appointed a special representative with a mandate to make recommendations on how to improve the human-rights situation in Rwanda.

-- provided the Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, from within existing resources, with additional human, financial, and material resources, in order to enable him to carry out his mandate effectively, including through country visits.

-- requested the Special Rapporteurs on Zaire, on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions and a member of the Working Group on Enforced on Involuntary Disappearances to carry out a joint mission to investigate allegations of massacres and other issues affecting human rights in Zaire.

-- requested the Secretary-General to submit to the General Assembly a report on the situation of United Nations staff carrying out activities in fulfilment of the mandate of operations of the Organization who were imprisoned, missing, or held against their will, and commissioned a comprehensive and independent study from within existing resources, to shed further light on safety and security problems faced by such staff.

-- approved a request to the Secretary-General, in implementing the United Nations budget for 1998-199, to ensure the availability of resources needed for effective implementation of all thematic mandates on human rights.

-- proclaimed 26 June a United Nations international day in support of victims of torture and of the total eradication of torture, and approved requests to the Secretary-General to include the United Nations Voluntary Fund for Victims of Torture on an annual basis among the programmes for which funds were pledged at the United Nations Pledging Conference for Development Activities and to ensure provision of an adequate and stable level or staffing as well as necessary technical facilities for United Nations bodies and mechanisms dealing with torture.

-- requested the Secretary-General to continue to provide from within existing resources the necessary assistance for holding of meetings of the Coordinating Committee of national institutions for the promotion and protection of human rights; provided, within existing resources a fourth international workshop on national institutions, to be held in Mexico during 1997.

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-- requested that the Secretary-General make available adequate resources from within the regular budget to allow the High Commissioner for Human Rights, the Centre for Human Rights and the Department of Public Information to implement fully their expanded publications programme.

-- requested that the Secretary-General facilitate the holding of the sixth workshop on regional arrangements for the promotion and protection of human rights in the Asia and Pacific region under the regular budget and that he allocate more resources from existing funds to enable the countries in the region to benefit from all advisory services and technical cooperation.

-- requested that the Secretary-General allocate more human and financial resources for enlargement of the programme on advisory services and technical cooperation and the Voluntary Fund for Technical Cooperation.

-- requested the Secretary General to provide necessary assistance to the independent expert on assistance to Somalia in the field of human rights to assess means necessary to establish a programme of advisory services and technical cooperation.

-- requested the Secretary-General to assist the Government of Cambodia in ensuring the protection of the human rights of all in the country and to ensure adequate resources, from within existing resources, for enhanced functioning of the operational presence in Cambodia of the Centre for Human Rights; and to provide all necessary resources, from within existing resources, to enable the Special Representative to continue to fulfil his tasks expeditiously.

-- approved sending a mission to Guatemala at the end of 1997 to prepare a report reviewing implementation of the peace agreements recently signed.

-- requested that the General Assembly studied the possibility of extending the mandate of the International Civilian Mission to Haiti, which expired in July 1997.

-- appointed a Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Nigeria, with a mandate to establish direct contacts with the authorities and the people to lend practical assistance to Nigeria in achieving the restoration of democratic rule and the full enjoyment of human rights and fundamental freedoms.

-- adopted, by a roll-call vote of 46 in favour, 1 opposed, and 1 abstaining, a request that the Secretary-General bring Commission resolution 1997/55 on Israel's occupation of southern Lebanon and the Western Bekaa Valley to the attention of the Government of Israel and invite it to provide information concerning the extent of its implementation.

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-- endorsed a request to the Secretary-General to submit to the General Assembly and the Commission a comprehensive report on the implementation of the various provisions of Commission resolution 1997/72 on the right to development.

-- endorsed the Commission's request to the Secretary-General to provide the Special Rapporteur on Contemporary Forms of Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and related intolerance, , without any further delay, with all appropriate assistance and resources to carry out his mandate.

-- endorsed the Commission's decision to reiterate its request to the Secretary-General to provide the human rights programme with all the necessary human, financial and material resources from future regular budgets of the United Nations with the aim of strengthening the Office of the High Commissioner/Centre for Human Rights.

-- endorsed the Commission's decision to extend the mandate of the Special Rapporteur on Burundi for an additional year and requested him to submit an interim report to the General Assembly at its fifty-second session and a report to the Commission at its fifty-fourth session, and to apply a gender perspective to his work.

-- requested the Secretary-General, with regard to the Committee on the Rights of the Child, to ensure the provision of appropriate staff and facilities for the effective and expeditious performance of the functions of the Committee; and requested the Secretary-General, with regard to the Special Rapporteur on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography, to provide the Special Rapporteur with all necessary assistance and to urge all relevant parts of the United Nations system.

-- endorsed, by a roll-call vote of 29 in favour, 19 opposed, with 1 abstaining, the Commission's decision to authorize the open-ended working group on structural adjustment programmes and economic, social and cultural rights to meet for one week. In order for the working group to carry out its mandate, the Council decided to request the Chairman of the Commission to appoint an independent expert, to study the effects of structural adjustment policies on economic, social and cultural rights.

-- approved the Commission's decision to endorse the request of the Subcommission that the full and updated study right to a fair trial, be published as described in Subcommission Resolution 1996/29 of 1996.

-- endorsed the Commission's decision to request the Special Rapporteur on the question of human rights and states of emergency to submit in his tenth annual report an updated list of States which had proclaimed, extended, or terminated states of emergency, together with final conclusions on the

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protection of human rights during states of emergency and recommendations on how the question should be dealt with in future.

-- recommended that the Special Rapporteur on the protection of the heritage of indigenous people be entrusted with a continuing mandate to exchange information with all parts of the United Nations system involved in activities concerned with this issue, with the purpose of facilitating cooperation and coordination and of promoting the full participation of indigenous people in these efforts.

-- requested the Special Rapporteur on treaties, agreements and other constructive arrangements between states and indigenous populations to submit his final report in time for it to be considered by the Working Group on Indigenous Populations at its fifteenth session and the Subcommission at its forty-ninth session.

-- approved the recommendation of the Subcommission that expert Erica-Irene Daes be appointed Special Rapporteur to prepare, within existing resources, a working paper on indigenous people and their relationship to land with a view to suggesting practical measures to address ongoing problems in this regard.

In its consideration of matters submitted to it by the Commission on Narcotic Drugs, the Council, among other things, recommended that 8 to 19 June 1998 be the dates for a special session of the General Assembly on the fight against the illicit production, sale, demand, traffic, and distribution of narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances and related activities; requested the Secretary-General to convene a small group of experts to undertake a comprehensive review of how efforts against illicit drugs had evolved within the United Nations system with the aim of identifying measures to strengthen future international cooperation; urged all Governments to continue contributing to the maintenance of a balance between the licit supply of and demand for opiates for medical and scientific needs, the achievement of which would be facilitated by maintaining support to the traditional supplier countries, and to cooperate in preventing the proliferation of sources of production and manufacture for export; urged all States to take measures to implement the Baku Accord on Regional Cooperation against Illicit Cultivation, Production, Trafficking, Distribution and Consumption of Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances and their Precursors; and urged the international community to take due account of the anti-drug strategy approved by the Inter-American Drug Abuse Control Commission of the Organization of American States; urged implementation of comprehensive measures to counter the illicit manufacture, trafficking and abuse of amphetamine-type stimulants and their precursors.

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By other action, the Council expressed concern at a lack of adequate resources which might impede progress in the further "operationalization" of the United Nations Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice Programme; and requested the Secretary-General to assist countries in the improvement of their prison conditions.

In response to the report of the Commission on Social Development, the Council, among other things adopted recommended measures on the international year of older persons; equalization of opportunities for persons with disabilities; children with disabilities; implementation of the world programme of action for youth to the year 2000 and beyond; and follow-up to the year of the family. It also confirmed the following new candidates for membership on the Board of the Institute for a four-year term beginning on 1 July 1997: Heba Alimad Handoussa (Egypt), Eveline Herfkens (Netherlands), Graça Simbine Machel (Mozambique), Marcia Rivera (United States) and Gita Sen (India).

The Council adopted several measures related to the advancement of women. It called upon all to cooperate in implementing the strategies adopted at the Fourth World Conference on Women; renewed the mandate of the Open-ended Working Group on the Elaboration of a Draft Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women; and passed, by a roll-call vote of 44 in favour, 1 opposed, with no abstentions, a resolution on Palestinian women reaffirming that the Israeli occupation remained a major obstacle for Palestinian women with regard to their advancement, self-reliance, and integration in the development planning of their society and demanding that Israel, the occupying power, comply fully with the Universal Declaration on Human Rights, the Hague Convention, and the Geneva Convention on protection of civilians in time of war, in order to protect the rights of Palestinian women and their families.

On the subject of cartography, it endorsed a recommendation that the Seventh United Nations Regional Cartographic Conference for the Americas should be convened for five working days no later than early 2001.

In a resolution on the Committee of Experts on the Transport of Dangerous Goods, the Council took note of the adoption of new and amended provisions for inclusion in the Recommendations on the Transport of Dangerous Goods, and the completion of the first step in the reformatting of the existing recommendations into a model regulation annexed to a basic recommendation; requested the Secretary-General to circulate the new and amended recommendations to the Governments of Member States, the specialized agencies, the International Atomic Energy Agency and other organizations concerned; and to publish a consolidated version of the recommendations, as amended, in the reformatted form.

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In action on science and technology for development, the Council, among other things, recommended that each developing country and country in transition establish a national strategy for information and communication technologies and decided that the Commission on Science and Technology for Development should organize a workshop comparing experience in science, technology, and innovation policy or similar activities in developing countries and countries in transition.

In the field of population and development, the Council, among other things, urged the Statistics Division and the Population Division of the United Nations Secretariat, along with the regional commissions, other relevant United Nations and intergovernmental organizations, and governments providing technical assistance in statistics, to collaborate in the dissemination of the new set of recommendations on statistics of international migration.

A number of measures were approved as recommended by the regional economic commissions. It invited States members of the United Nations, international organizations, and the regional commissions to consider the possibility of taking appropriate measures for ensuring worldwide application of the United Nations Framework Classification for Reserves/Resources: Solid Fuels and Mineral Commodities developed by the Economic Commission for Europe. It decided to revise, as recommended, the conference structure of the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific. It supported widespread reforms undertaken and called for further progress by the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean in the context of reform of the United Nations. Among a number of measures related to the Economic Commission for Africa, it decided that the structure and functioning of the machinery should be set as recommended by the Commission in a scheme covering organs dealing with overall development issues; creating or retaining a series of subsidiary bodies to be created or retained; abolishing certain conferences, including the Conference of African Ministers responsible for Human Development, the Conference of African Ministers responsible for Sustainable Development and Environment, the Conference of African Ministers of Trade and Regional Cooperation and Integration, the Conference of African Ministers of Transport and Communications, and the Conference of African Ministers of Industry; and abolishing various Commission subsidiary bodies. And among a series of actions approved as recommended by the Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia, it called for establishment by the Commission of a Committee on Transport and a Technical Committee on Liberalization of Foreign Trade and Economic Globalization, and expressed appreciation for plans prepared and measures adopted to facilitate the relocation of the Commission to its permanent headquarters at Beirut.

Among several measures involving non-governmental organizations (NGOs), the Council approved granting of consultative status to 134 NGOs.

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Operational Activities Segment

Debate over two days under this agenda item included a morning panel discussion with representatives of the United Nations agencies in Cambodia at which they described efforts to coordinate and ensure efficiency in their various programmes and activities. Paul Matthews, Resident Representative of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Cambodia, said heads of agencies in the country -- the recipient of $ 500 million in aid since 1993 -- met once a month to cover items of interest to the United Nations community and to focus on items pertinent to the development agencies.

An afternoon panel discussion followed with members of the United Nations "Senegal team", for which representatives of nine agencies or programmes were present, led by United Nations Resident Coordinator for Senegal Odile Sorgho-Moulinier. In introductory statements, these officials outlined the scope of their activities and reviewed the effectiveness of efforts to avoid overlapping in their work.

Officers, Membership

The Officers of the Council for 1997 are: Vladimir Galuska (Czech Republic), President; Daniel Abibi (Congo), Anwarul Chowdhury (Bangladesh), Gerhard Walter Henze (Germany) and Juan Somavía (Chile), Vice-Presidents.

The 54 members of the Council for 1997 are Argentina, Australia, Bangladesh, Belarus, Brazil, Canada, Cape Verde, Central African Republic, Chile, China, Colombia, Congo, Côte d'Ivoire, Cuba, Czech Republic, Djibouti, El Salvador, Finland, France, Gabon, Gambia, Germany, Guyana, Iceland, India, Jamaica, Japan, Jordan, Latvia, Lebanon, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Mexico, Mozambique, Netherlands, Nicaragua, Philippines, Poland, Republic of Korea, Romania, Russian Federation, South Africa, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Sweden, Thailand, Togo, Tunisia, Turkey, Uganda, United Kingdom, United States and Zambia.

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