Economic and Social Council: No name

Closing its deliberations today, the Intergovernmental Preparatory Meeting for the nineteenth session of the Commission on Sustainable Development adopted its report, which included a draft negotiating document for the Commission’s consideration in May.

As delegates geared up for next year’s United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development to be held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, the Secretary-General of that event called on them today to use that gathering to take collective action to save societies from mounting social tensions, ecological damage and the global economic crisis.

Forced into early marriage and trafficked into sometimes life-threatening situations, girls around the world suffered some of the most severe forms of gender discrimination and abuse, civil society representatives told the Commission on the Status of Women today, urging that more be done by States and communities to ensure stronger penalties for perpetrators and legal recourse for victims.

“Too many people use money they don’t have to buy things they don’t need to impress people they don’t like,” the Intergovernmental Preparatory Meeting for the nineteenth session of the Commission on Sustainable Development heard today as it considered the elaboration of a 10-year framework of programmes on sustainable consumption and production patterns.

The Committee on Non-Governmental Organizations resumed its work this afternoon to adopt the final report on the work of its 2011 regular session, which ran at Headquarters from 31 January to 9 February.

There was a need for a paradigm shift in the traditional perception of waste as a costly and unwanted by-product, to one whereby it would be regarded as a resource, panellists told the Intergovernmental Preparatory Meeting for the nineteenth session of the Commission on Sustainable Development today.

Amid the ongoing tragedy of maternal mortality and morbidity, reaching the unreachable must be the goal of strategies to improve maternal health care, while securing the promises of sustainable development required that poor women be “dealt in” to a green economy, the Commission on the Status of Women heard today.

Access to the most basic transport infrastructure was still lacking in many areas around the world, while changes were needed at all levels of society in the management of chemicals, participants said during today’s Intergovernmental Preparatory Meeting for the nineteenth session of the Commission on Sustainable Development.

Violence against women remained the most prevalent and pervasive form of human rights violations and its elimination depended on the effective implementation of standards to ensure that its root causes and consequences were pursued at all levels, the Commission on the Status of Women heard today, as it tackled a host of issues related to advancing gender equality and women’s empowerment around the world.

The challenges presented by a fragile and uneven global economic recovery continued to threaten progress towards sustainable development, Sha Zukang, Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs, told the Commission on Sustainable Development today at the opening of the week-long Intergovernmental Preparatory Meeting for the Commission’s nineteenth session.