Economic and Social Council

Following are UN Deputy Secretary-General Asha-Rose Migiro’s remarks to the Economic and Social Council Conference on Creating a Sustainable Future: Empowering Youth with Better Job Opportunities, in New York, 4 May:

The Economic and Social Council will hold a Youth Forum on 4 May from 9:30 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. in the ECOSOC Chamber at Headquarters, New York, on the theme “Creating a Sustainable Future: Empowering Youth with Better Job Opportunities”.

Many youth delegates had spoken candidly about their experiences and expectations throughout the week-long session, said Population Commission Chairman late Friday following adoption of a key draft resolution, reminding members that “what really matters is what happens outside this room, when we are back in our capitals,” where, “we have to walk the talk, to move from paper to people.”

Continuing its 2012 organizational session, the Economic and Social Council this afternoon elected by secret ballot Francisco Thoumi (Colombia) to serve effective immediately as a member of the International Narcotics Control Board until 15 March 2012.

The nearly week-long debate in the Population Commission heard Member States, experts and United Nations agency heads weigh in on the spectrum of concerns facing adolescents and youth, with the hope reinforced today that efforts made to embed credible, cohesive policies into global, national and local strategies were an investment in youth certain to yield positive results.

Resuming its 2012 organizational session, the Economic and Social Council filled vacancies in 20 of its subsidiary bodies and adopted themes for some items of its upcoming substantive session. It also postponed until Friday afternoon elections for a member of the Commission on Narcotic Drugs.

Speaking to the biological shift experienced by young people during the transition from adolescence from adulthood, Professor of Adolescent Health Research at Melbourne University George Patton said that youth experienced a “window of vulnerability” that lasted into the late 20s.

“It’s a fool’s paradise to believe that by controlling the lives of adolescents and young people, and denying them health-promoting — and perhaps life-saving — information and services, we are preserving our old way of life, or protecting the young from the dangers of the modern world,” one of among 40 speakers told the Commission on Population and Development today.

Acknowledging the unusually large attendance at the forty-fifth session of the Commission on Population and Development, which opened today, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said the turnout told only part of the story; the real message was the energy of the session and the presence of so many young people.

With its upcoming annual high-level session set to tackle the ongoing jobs crisis, the Economic and Social Council today convened an expert preparatory meeting to address the growing global demand for more — and better — jobs, and to weigh policy options that might better align education and training with current employment demands.