General Assembly, Adopting Decisions from Fifth Committee, Agrees to Keep Global Service Delivery Model under Review, Defer Closing of Côte d’Ivoire Operation

On the recommendation of its Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary), the General Assembly adopted two decisions on 13 July, one deferring financial discussions around the closure of the United Nations operation in Côte d’Ivoire, and the second keeping the issue of a global service delivery model — aimed at consolidating the Organization’s administrative services — under review.

Under its silence procedure, the Assembly adopted a decision titled “Questions deferred for future consideration” (document A/74/L.54), deferring until the second part of its resumed seventy-fifth session, consideration of the Secretary-General’s report titled, “Final performance on the United Nations operation in Côte d’Ivoire,” (document A/71/711), and the related report of the Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions (ACABQ) (document A/74/785).

By its second decision titled, “Global service delivery model”, (document A/74/L.53), the Assembly decided to keep the question of the global service delivery model under review, and to revert on the present reports (documents A/73/706, A/73/791) at the main part of its seventy-fifth session.

Under decision 74/544, “Procedure for taking decisions of the General Assembly during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic”, adopted on 27 March, the Assembly President is authorized to circulate, after consultation with the General Committee, its draft decisions to all Member States under a silence procedure of at least 72 hours.  If the silence is not broken, the decision should be considered adopted.  On 15 May, through decision 74/555 (document A/74/L.65), the silence procedure was extended until the end of June.  On 18 June, the procedure was extended again until 31 July (document A/74/L.72).  (See also Press Releases GA/12244 of 14 May, GA/12245 of 20 May and GA/12251 of 18 June.)

The final version of decisions adopted during the resumed part of the General Assembly’s seventy-fourth session will be contained in the organ’s official record (document A/74/49 (Vol. III)) after editorial review.