Economic and Social Council: Press Conference

Women grass-roots activists should be given more clout in forming policies at both the local and international levels, speakers said today at a Headquarters press conference on the role of women food producers and their coping strategies in times of severe food insecurity.

The International Narcotics Control Board was concerned that the “creeping normalization” of so-called medicinal marijuana might spur addictive or hard-core use of the drug, a Board member said today while presenting its annual report at a Headquarters press conference.

A duchess, an Oscar winner, a diplomat and the head of a corporate foundation joined two United Nations officials at a Headquarters press conference this afternoon to urge philanthropists to focus on women’s empowerment as an effective way to boost socio-economic conditions around the world.

Amid a climate of economic and financial insecurity, environmental peril and persistent social exclusion, the United Nations Commission for Social Development would endeavour during its current session to adopt resolutions that would help chart the future of social development policies within the framework of greater participation and accountability, that body’s Chairman said today.

The World Survey on the Role of Women in Development points to long-standing inequalities in access to economic and financial resources, which had placed women at a disadvantage in relation to men in economic development, the Director of the Division for the Advancement of Women said at a Headquarters press conference this morning.

Launching "The World Economic and Social Survey 2009: Promoting Development, Saving the Planet" at Headquarters today, a high-level official of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs said that pursuing the two goals of fighting climate change and simultaneously meeting development demands would require a global public policy agenda, as market mechanisms were not the most effective instruments to drive change.

Agriculture was a mainstay of development in Africa, but was also a neglected sector, Robert Vos, Director, Development Policy and Analysis Division of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs, told correspondents today at the launch of the 2009 Africa Economic Report, adding that “regional value chains” could enhance African agricultural markets through cooperation, rather than focusing on competition between African countries.

The Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues would support a framework which stressed the State’s duty to protect citizens, through regulation and adjudication, against human rights abuses by third parties, Chairperson Victoria Tauli-Corpuz said this afternoon.

The United Nations had downgraded its world economic forecast for 2009, Rob Vos, Director of the Development Policy and Analysis Division, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, told correspondents at a Headquarters press conference this morning.

The Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues had an urgent mandate to activate the 2007 Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples through national legislation around the world, members said at a Headquarters press conference this afternoon on today’s opening of the Forum’s eighth session.