Economic and Social Council Adopts Text to Discontinue United Nations Conference on Standardization of Geographical Names in Current Form
Organ Further Approves 6 Decisions, 2 Recommendations on Organizational Matters
The Economic and Social Council today adopted a resolution to discontinue the United Nations Conference on the Standardization of Geographical Names in its current form, along with six decisions and two recommendations on organizational matters.
The text (contained in document E/CONF.105/165), recommended for adoption by the eleventh United Nations Conference on the Standardization of Geographical Names, would also discontinue the Organization’s Group of Experts on Geographical Names in its current form.
The Conference and Group of Experts would be subsumed by a subsidiary body of the Economic and Social Council and retain their mandates as well as Conference resolutions and responsibility for their implementation. The new body, called the United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names, would consist of Member States’ representatives, including Government‑appointed experts.
The Group of Experts would focus on technical issues related to standardization of geographical names to support relevant aspects of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. The Group would hold biennial five‑day sessions beginning in 2019, set its strategic direction, adopt resolutions for submission to the Economic and Social Council and address the needs of a rapidly changing and expanding technical environment.
By a further Conference recommendation, the Group of Experts would meet from 29 April to 3 May 2018.
Also recommended by the Conference, the Council adopted the unified Arabic transliteration system (Beirut 2007 system), as set out in the document titled “romanization system from Arabic letters to Latinized letters 2007”.
The Council also adopted a decision (contained in document E/2017/80), recommended by the United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names and introduced by Australia’s delegate, to take note of the Group’s thirtieth session and schedule its next meeting for 29 April to 3 May 2019 at New York Headquarters.
In an oral decision, it also took note of the report of the eleventh United Nations Conference on the Standardization of Geographical Names.
The Council also adopted several other decisions, mainly on meetings related to the 2030 Agenda.
By one text (document E/2018/L.2), the Council would request the United Nations System Standing Committee on Nutrition to transmit an annual report on its activities, starting in 2018, to promote the coherence and impact of the United Nations system response to nutrition problems and reflect on policy implications for achieving the 2030 Agenda.
According to another (document E/2018/L.3), the 2018 Development Cooperation Forum would be held on 21 and 22 May. The dates of the multi‑stakeholder forum on science, technology and innovation for the Sustainable Development Goals would be changed from 16 and 17 May 2018 to 5 and 6 June 2018.
Further to that decision, the high‑level political forum on sustainable development would be held under the Council’s auspices from 9 to 13 July 2018, the three‑day ministerial meeting of the forum from 16 to 18 July 2018 and the high‑level segment from 16 to 19 July 2018.
By another text (document E/2018/L.4), the sixteenth session of the Committee of Experts on International Cooperation in Tax Matters would be held at Headquarters from 14 to 17 May 2018.
A final text (document E/2018/L.5) designated the theme for the integration segment of its 2018 session as “iCommunities: leveraging technology and innovation to build sustainable and resilient societies”.