SECRETARY-GENERAL, IN REMARKS TO ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL COUNCIL, STRESSES COOPERATION BETWEEN ECOSOC AND SECURITY COUNCIL

25 March 1999

Press Release
SG/SM/6940
ECOSOC/5817

SECRETARY-GENERAL, IN REMARKS TO ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL COUNCIL, STRESSES COOPERATION BETWEEN ECOSOC AND SECURITY COUNCIL

19990325 Says Cooperation, Built around Specific Needs and Clearly Identified Objectives, Can Help UN Respond to Challenges of Peace-building, Development

Following is the text of opening remarks by Secretary-General Kofi Annan at the resumed organizational session of the Economic and Social Council, in New York today:

I am pleased to join you again and to resume the dialogue we began last month. Let me first pay tribute to your leadership. Good progress is being made towards what you have described as the "renaissance" of the Economic and Social Council. As you continue those efforts, you can count on my support.

Not least among the strides being made by ECOSOC is its return to the ECOSOC Chamber. A generous contribution by the Government of Italy and other steps are bringing us closer to the day -- within the course of this year, I trust -- when the Council can meet, once again, in its own room.

Of course, even more important than where we meet is what we do there, and who our partners are. The months ahead hold much in store for us on both these fronts.

April will see a further deepening of the strategic partnership that is being built between the United Nations and the Bretton Woods institutions. And I think the President has said a lot about that already. Along with my own regular consultations with the President of the World Bank and the Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), these heightened contacts are providing a solid foundation for stronger cooperation, both at the policy level and on the ground, where it counts most.

Looking a little further ahead, momentum is already being built towards our July session and your discussions on poverty, gender, employment and development in Africa.

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I welcome in particular the intensive preparations you are making for the high-level segment through a series of panels on poverty eradication.

All of these deliberations can, in turn, provide valuable input for next year's Millennium Assembly. So let us take advantage of these opportunities. We are moving towards a more unified United Nations response to those who look to us for help in the struggle for economic and social progress.

As we implement the United Nations Development Assistance Framework, and as the World Bank's initiative for a Comprehensive Development Framework takes shape, this is the time to work even more closely together to get the best out of our collective efforts.

The ECOSOC can play a pivotal role in promoting the kind of cooperation we need, both within and beyond the United Nations system, and at both the headquarters and country levels.

The private sector and civil society must be even more involved in our work. The interactions between ECOSOC and the Administrative Committee on Coordination (ACC) should be intensified. Indeed, if the system is really to function as a system, ECOSOC and the ACC will have to work more closely in tandem towards common goals. I am committed to making this partnership work and I have taken careful note of the many useful suggestions made at your last meeting.

Yet another partnership with considerable potential is the one envisaged in Article 65 of the Charter, which the President referred to, under which your Council may furnish information to the Security Council and assist the Security Council when it so requests. Cooperation between these two bodies can help the United Nations respond to the challenges of peace-building and long-term development. But to be productive, such an approach will need to be built around specific needs and clearly identified objectives.

Let me conclude by stressing how grateful I am by ECOSOC's important contribution to the process of United Nations reform. You have improved your working methods, and you are bringing greater coherence to your system of subsidiary bodies.

You recognize, as I do, the need to restore a clear identity to a key organ of the United Nations, so that it can give the world's peoples the service they are entitled to expect. In that spirit, I look forward to hearing your views.

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