Economic and Social Council: Meetings Coverage

The Economic and Social Council this morning elected Mohamed Khaled Khiari (Tunisia) Vice-President of the 54-member body.

Experts, United Nations officials and representatives of Member States exchanged views over two sessions today on the longer-term positioning of the Organization’s development system taking into account the post-2015 development agenda, at a dialogue organized by the Economic and Social Council.

The collapse of the international financial system in 2008 was partly attributable to the conflicts of interest implicit in agency-client relationships and the lack of transparency in the industry, experts said today as the Economic and Social Council held a panel exploring how countries, regional organizations and United Nations agencies could work together towards a fair, transparent and more comprehensive international credit ratings system that supported sustainable development.

The deadly Ebola outbreak could inflict $3-4 billion in losses on the Sub-Saharan African economy and had already begun to erode economic growth in the hardest-hit countries, the Economic and Social Council heard today as it considered how the epidemic could endanger sustainable development.

The Economic and Social Council, in one of five texts adopted today, called on the Haitian Government to fully operationalize the External Aid Coordination Framework and its mechanisms in keeping with the road map adopted in 2014.

The Economic and Social Council used the first day of a periodic management meeting to advance its wide-ranging work on economic, social and environmental issues by adopting several draft texts, accepting reports and filling vacancies on nearly a dozen of its own subsidiary bodies.

The Economic and Social Council today adopted two draft resolutions, one relating to the Istanbul Programme of Action for least developed countries and another relating to the United Nations Habitat III Conference planned for 2016.