Economic and Social Council: Meetings Coverage

The Committee on Non-Governmental Organizations resumed its 2023 session today, recommending 61 entities for special consultative status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council and deferring action on 44 others.

The United Nations Forum on Forests concluded its eighteenth session today, approving a draft decision that its nineteenth session will be held at United Nations Headquarters from 6 to 10 May 2024 along with the draft provisional agenda for that session, sending both texts to the Economic and Social Council for formal adoption following week-long discussions on topics ranging from the importance of sustainable forest management to the potential offered by wood-based bioenergy.

As the Forum on Forests addressed its preparations for the midterm review on the effectiveness of the international arrangement on forests and the status of its Trust Fund, as well as emerging issues facing forest management, speakers today underlined the need to improve transparency, increase funding and build on the forests-energy-livelihoods nexus.

Building countries’ capacities to increase data collection and develop financing that supports sustainable forest management is much needed, speakers stressed, as the United Nations Forum on Forests today considered means of implementation and the monitoring, assessment and reporting of the United Nations Strategic Plan for Forests 2017-2030.

Sharing national best practices on the protection of forests, speakers today deliberated ways of enhancing sustainable forest management in achieving global forest goals and explored their linkages with other major international frameworks and agreements, as the United Nations Forum on Forests continued its session.

With 2023 a pivotal year for the United Nations Strategic Plan on Forests and the 2030 Agenda on Sustainable Development, the United Nations Forum on Forests must identify concrete forest-based actions, address interlinkages and advance progress towards combating climate change and ensuring sustainable development, speakers today stressed as the Forum commenced its eighteenth session.

Speakers from around the globe underscored the vital role of inclusive planning and collective learning in harnessing data and artificial intelligence for sustainable development, as the Economic and Social Council concluded its two-day forum on science, technology and innovation.

The multiple crises of the last three years have dealt “a major blow” to the Sustainable Development Goals, requiring urgent action in sharing science, technology, innovation and digitalization to bridge that gap between haves and have-nots and ensure not just global progress, but survival, speakers told the Economic and Social Council today as it opened its two-day forum on the subject.

Closing its twenty-second session this afternoon, the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues sent three draft decisions to the Economic and Social Council for formal adoption as it approved several recommendations on this year’s priority theme, “Indigenous Peoples, human health, planetary and territorial health and climate change: a rights-based approach”.

As the biggest gathering of the Economic and Social Council Youth Forum of all time concluded today, youth delegates and high-level Government and United Nations officials underscored the vital role of young people in policy and decision-making and their more enhanced engagement in related intergovernmental processes, particularly the upcoming Summit on the Sustainable Development Goals.