The Economic and Social Council continued its annual Forum on Financing for Development today, holding two interactive panel discussions, during which speakers proposed potential solutions to COVID-19’s devastating impact on infrastructure investment — lagging even before the novel coronavirus struck — and sought ways to avoid a global post-pandemic recovery that leaves some behind.
The Economic and Social Council opened its annual financing for development forum today amid warnings that, with more than 3 million lives lost to COVID-19 and infections still on the rise, Governments must urgently heed the lessons learned thus far if they are to avoid a lengthy global recession.
Following are UN Secretary-General António Guterres’ remarks to the opening of the 2021 Economic and Social Council Forum on Financing for Development, in New York today:
With more than 19,000 participants joining virtually over its two-day session, the 2021 Economic and Social Council Youth Forum concluded today as the largest and most diverse gathering of young people in the United Nations history, amid calls to retain useful pandemic-era tools while addressing the structural inequities that have long held youth back from achieving their full potential.
Following is the text of UN Secretary-General António Guterres’ video message for the Economic and Social Council Youth Forum today:
After a one-year hiatus due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Economic and Social Council Youth Forum reconvened today in a virtual format to mark its tenth anniversary, with speakers emphasizing the critical role that the world’s 1.8 billion young people can — and must — play in “building back better” and fulfilling the promise of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
The Commission on the Status of Women concluded its sixty-fifth session today, approving a wide-ranging set of agreed conclusions that broadly reaffirm the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action — adopted at the landmark fourth World Conference on Women in 1995 — as “crucial” to fulfilling the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, as the world slowly emerges from the COVID-19 pandemic.
Pursuing gender equality cannot, and will not, be stopped by pandemics, sanctions, conflict, budget shortfalls or the perpetuation of conservative traditions, ministers and other Government representatives told the Commission on the Status of Women during a videoconference meeting on the penultimate day of its sixty-fifth session.
Domestic violence hotlines and programmes aimed at closing gender pay gaps are among an array of tools several States are using to integrate women’s empowerment into national sustainable development strategies, delegates told the Commission on the Status of Women, as it continued its sixty-fifth session with an interactive dialogue and general discussion.
The Commission on the Status of Women continued its sixty-fifth session today, with policymakers from Algeria, Mongolia, Egypt, Rwanda and the United Arab Emirates presenting national achievements in building out the normative, legal and policy frameworks essential for supporting women in all spheres of life.
