While international standards guarantee the rights of indigenous peoples to self-determination, territories and resources, these fundamental freedoms are trampled upon in the name of mining, logging, oil, gas exploration and even conservation deemed essential to national development, speakers told the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues today, laying out recommendations for transnational businesses to respect their traditional knowledge and inherent dignity.
The explosive growth of extractive operations around the world often plays out on indigenous people’s lands without their consent, causing irreparable harm to their livelihoods, cultures, languages and lives, speakers told the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues today, as it opened its 2022 session amid calls to respect their free, prior and informed consent on the existential decisions uprooting their communities.
The Economic and Social Council opened its annual forum on financing for development follow-up today with speakers warning that a convergence of crises — the lingering COVID-19 pandemic, climate change and debt unsustainability — have been exacerbated by the war in Ukraine, threatening to reverse development gains by a generation.
Against the backdrop of shifting population demographics, conflicts, post-pandemic economic shocks and climate change, the developing world is on the brink of a “perfect storm” of debt, food and energy crises, experts warned today, as the Commission on Population and Development opened its fifty-fifth session.
With more than half the world’s people living in cities and the fastest population growth projected to take place in urban settings, sustainable development will hinge on how countries manage urbanization, the Economic and Social Council President told delegates today, as he opened the special meeting on the New Urban Agenda amid calls for tackling the deep inequities exposed by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The participation of young people is vital in order to accelerate progress on the Sustainable Development Goals, young delegates and high-level Government officials alike told the Economic and Social Council today as it concluded its eleventh annual Youth Forum.
From remote work to green energy to ending conflicts, young people must be at the forefront of planning for a truly transformed, post-COVID-19 future, speakers told the Economic and Social Council’s annual Youth Forum today, while warning against resorting to tokenism or including youth voices to merely “tick a box”.
The Economic and Social Council today filled vacancies and nominated experts for 16 subsidiary bodies, both by secret ballot and acclamation, with some delegates expressing reservations about certain newly-elected members.
Reforming the current international corporate tax regime is critical to rebuilding trust and creating a new social contract between companies, Governments and citizens, the Economic and Social Council heard today, as members held their annual meeting on international cooperation in tax matters.
The Commission on the Status of Women approved the first‑ever set of agreed conclusions focused on empowering women and girls in the context of climate action, as it concluded its sixty-sixth session late tonight.
