Sixty-fourth General Assembly

Second Committee

37^th Meeting (PM)

Second Committee Approves Texts on Sustainable Mountain Development,

Landlocked Developing Countries, Cyber Security

 

The Second Committee (Economic and Financial) approved by consensus today three draft resolutions relating, respectively, to sustainable mountain development, cyber security and landlocked developing countries.

By terms of the text on landlocked developing countries, the General Assembly would express concern that the economic growth of those countries remained very susceptible to external shocks, and stress the need for the international community to enhance development assistance to them.  It would call upon landlocked and transit developing countries to make every effort to speed up the Almaty Programme of Action, as set out in the Declaration of the high-level meeting of the sixty-third Assembly session on that subject.

Further by that text, the Assembly would call upon donors as well as multilateral and regional financial and development institutions to provide landlocked and transit developing countries with appropriate, substantial and better-coordinated technical and financial assistance, particularly in the form of grants or concessionary loans for the implementation of the Almaty Programme of Action.

The Assembly would, by other terms, call upon development partners to make the Aid for Trade Initiative operational, and call upon the relevant stakeholders to integrate the Almaty Programme of Action into their work.  The Assembly would also note with concern that, despite advances, landlocked developing countries remained marginalized in international trade, and were therefore unable to harness the potential of trade as an engine of sustained economic growth.

By the draft on sustainable mountain development, the Assembly would note with concern the key challenges to achieving sustainable development, eradicating poverty in mountain regions and protecting mountain ecosystems, and that mountain populations were frequently among the poorest.  It would express its deep concern over the number and scale of natural disasters and their increasing long-term negative social, economic and environmental impact in recent years, particularly in mountain regions, and urge the international community to take concrete steps to support national and regional efforts to ensure sustainable mountain development.

Also by that text, the Assembly would call upon Governments, in collaboration with the scientific community, mountain communities and intergovernmental organizations, to study the specific concerns of mountain communities in order to devise sustainable adaptation strategies and implement adequate measures to cope with the adverse effects of climate change.  It would underline the importance of promoting the full participation and involvement of mountain communities in decisions affecting them, and of integrating indigenous knowledge, heritage and values into all development initiatives.

The draft resolution on the creation of a global culture of cyber security would have the Assembly invite Member States to use, if and when deemed appropriate, voluntary self-assessment tools to protect critical information infrastructures and strengthen cyber security, as set forth in the annex to the text, in order to aid national efforts in that regard and highlight areas for further action, with the goal of increasing the global cyber security culture.

The Assembly would also encourage Member States, as well as relevant regional and international organizations that had developed strategies to deal with cyber security and the protection of critical information infrastructures, to share their best practices and measures that could assist the efforts of other Member States to achieve cyber security by providing such information to the Secretary-General for compilation and dissemination.

Also during today’s meeting, Sudan’s representative introduced, on behalf of the “Group of 77” developing countries and China, two draft resolutions titled, respectively, “Follow-up International Conference on Financing for Development to Review the Implementation of the Monterrey Consensus” (document A/C.2/L.43) and “Women in Development” (document A/C.2/L.44).

Denmark’s representative highlighted the potentially overlapping dates of the high-level events on the reviews of the Convention on Biological Diversity, the Millennium Development Goals and the opening of the Assembly in September 2010, urging Member States to try to resolve the scheduling conflict.

Committee Chairperson Park In-kook ( Republic of Korea) informed delegates that the General Committee had decided on Tuesday to recommend to the Assembly the inclusion on its current agenda of an item on the United Nations University, and its allocation to the Second Committee.

The Committee will reconvene at 3 p.m. on Tuesday 1 December to take action on outstanding draft resolutions.

* *** *

For information media • not an official record