General Assembly Adopts Eight Draft Texts, Including Fifth Committee’s First Comprehensive Resolution on Human Resources Management in Six Years

The General Assembly adopted today by consensus three decisions and five resolutions, including the Fifth Committee’s (Administrative and Budgetary) first comprehensive resolution on human resources management in more than six years. 

Marinko Avramović (Bosnia and Herzegovina), Special Rapporteur of the Fifth Committee, at the meeting’s outset, presented to the Assembly the Committee’s reports during the first part of its resumed seventy-seventh session and the related four draft resolutions and one draft decision, which were then adopted without a vote.  (For background, please see Press Release GA/AB/4417.)

Those reports included “Appointment of members of the Committee on Contributions”, recommending the appointment of Minhong Yi of the Republic of Korea as a member of the Committee on Contributions (document A/77/568/Add.1); “Programme budget for 2023”, recommending the Assembly adopt draft resolution “Special subjects relating to the programme budget for 2023” (document A/77/672/Add.1); “Human resources management”, the first comprehensive resolution on human resources management adopted by the Committee in six years (document A/77/818); resolution on the “Joint Inspection Unit” (document A/77/819); and “Review of the efficiency of the administrative and financial functioning of the United Nations”, and its draft resolution “Progress towards an accountability system in the United Nations Secretariat”, and the draft decision “Questions deferred for future consideration” (document A/77/673/Add.1).

The General Assembly then adopted without a vote draft resolution “Promoting the social and solidarity economy for sustainable development” (document A/77/L.60).

Yolanda Díaz, Second Vice-President and Minister for Work and Social Economy of Spain, introducing that text, said it encourages Member States and international organizations to include the social and solidarity economy in national plans and framework legislation and urges development banks and financial institutions to support this economic formula. Noting that such economy accounts for 10 per cent of her country’s gross domestic product (GDP), she said this model grants people direct control of agricultural production, health care, industry, trade, education, housing and energy distribution. The social and solidarity economy “is not an approximate representation of the future we want” in Spain, she added, “but an example of what is possible”.

Next, the General Assembly adopted without a vote draft decision “Intergovernmental conference on an international legally binding instrument under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea on the conservation and sustainable use of marine biological diversity of areas beyond national jurisdiction” (document A/77/L.62).

Yong-Ern Nathaniel Khng (Singapore), speaking on behalf of Rena Lee, President of the Intergovernmental Conference, introduced the draft decision, which, among other things, establishes an open-ended informal working group tasked with ensuring the uniformity of terminology throughout the draft agreement and harmonizing the versions in the six official languages of the United Nations.

The General Assembly then adopted, without a vote, the draft decision entitled “Modalities for the Summit of the Future:  rescheduling of the preparatory ministerial meeting” (document A/77/L.63), by which it decided to hold such meeting on 21 September.

Csaba Kőrösi (Hungary), President of the General Assembly, then gave an overview of what the Assembly has mandated for the high-level week of its seventh-eighth session, which includes the high-level political forum on sustainable development, starting on 18 September, and the beginning of the general debate on 19 September.