Economic and Social Council: Meetings Coverage

The Economic and Social Council adopted, without a vote, five draft decisions on dates and themes of upcoming high-level meetings.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon called upon Governments, businesses and others around the world to step up efforts for gender equality, as he opened the sixtieth session of the Commission on the Status of Women which, over two weeks, will underscore the crucial role of women in implementing and achieving the Sustainable Development Goals.

The Economic and Social Council concluded its three-day operational activities segment today, with Governments calling on the United Nations to “fundamentally reshape” its development system by outlining new policy directions and partnerships that increased the efficiency, coherence and funding of the Organization’s 27 programmes, funds and specialized agencies.

The United Nations must manage protracted crises more effectively, and overcome operational and funding silos to achieve lasting solutions, speakers in the Economic and Social Council agreed today, calling upon all entities to “deliver as one”.

The United Nations must reform its development system by adapting its silo structure to work flexibly across sectors, tailoring programmes to specific country priorities and diversifying its funding sources in order to meet the unprecedented multisectoral demands of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, delegates stressed today, as the Economic and Social Council opened its 2016 operational activities segment.

The Economic and Social Council adopted three texts this morning, including one by which it changed the dates of its 2016 humanitarian affairs segment.

The Committee on Non-Governmental Organizations today concluded its regular session with the adoption of its report, in which it recommended that the Economic and Social Council grant consultative status to 206 of the 475 applicants it considered during its session.

The Commission for Social Development concluded its fifty-fourth session today, approving three draft resolutions for adoption by the Economic and Social Council with one on Africa’s development, traditionally endorsed by consensus, requiring a rare vote to address the United States’ concerns over language around trade issues, and more generally, “the right to development”.

Economies must be put at the service of people, through effective integrated social policies, the United Nations Secretary-General told the Commission for Social Development today, stressing that, in a world where inequality was still too high and too few economies had attained sustainable growth, the body’s policy guidance would be critical to global efforts to end poverty by 2030.

There was now a common understanding that social policies inclusive of persons with disabilities were a “sound” investment in society and that their exclusion from decisions came with economic costs that countries could no longer ignore, the Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities told the Commission for Social Development today, outlining ways to ensure the new 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development built on historic gains in their recognition.