Economic and Social Council

Three days before the high-level segment of the nineteenth Commission on Sustainable Development, Under-Secretary-General Sha Zukang and Chairman László Borbély highlighted the session’s crucial focus on the need for more efficient use of natural resources during a Headquarters press conference today. “We are focusing on concrete ways to use resources more efficiently,” said Mr. Sha, Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs.

Meeting briefly at the end of the first week of its annual two-week session, the Commission on Sustainable Development was urged by its Chair to do its utmost — and perhaps go even further — to reach the goal of shaping critical global policies on transport; chemicals; waste management; mining; and a 10-Year Framework of Programmes on Sustainable Consumption and Production Patterns.

“The Asia-Pacific region is both a growth driver and anchor of stability for the global economy,” said Amr Nour, Director of the Regional Commissions New York Office, at a press conference to launch the 2011 report of the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific.

Whether measured by greenhouse gas concentrations, deforestation rates or declining fish stocks, current unsustainable consumption and production patterns threatened to exceed the capacity of global ecosystems and the world community must accelerate efforts to pursue environmentally sound economic growth and “meet our commitments to future generations”, a top United Nations official told the Commission on Sustainable Development today, as it opened its nineteenth session.

In its last session before the “Rio+20” Conference in 2012, the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development will meet from 2-13 May to recommend policy options aimed at promoting more efficient, equitable and safer use of the Earth’s resources.

A shift in global educational priorities — namely, going beyond access to improve the quality of schooling and promote creative policies — should be a key focus during the “signature” meeting of the Economic and Social Council later this year, regional representatives and experts said today.

In a resumed organizational session today, the Economic and Social Council filled vacancies on 16 of its subsidiary bodies, electing most of the new members by acclamation and holding three secret ballots.

In a burst of activity today, the Economic and Social Council unanimously adopted four decisions and one resolution, laying out, among other things, the themes of its annual ministerial reviews over the next three years, as well as those for the humanitarian segment and the agenda item on regional cooperation of its 2011 substantive session, to be held in Geneva in July.

Deeply concerned that an estimated 358,000 women had died in 2008 from largely preventable complications relating to pregnancy and childbirth, the Commission on Population and Development concluded its forty-fourth session today by urging all Governments to redouble efforts for the elimination of preventable maternal morbidity and mortality by ensuring universal access to reproductive health, including family planning, by 2015.

Higher levels of education, particularly among girls, had a strong correlation to declining fertility and better development outcomes, delegates and experts said today as the Commission on Population and Development continued its forty-fourth session.