Economic and Social Council

The Committee on Non-Governmental Organizations today concluded substantive work of its 2015 regular session with the presentation of the body’s draft report, which will be finalized for adoption next week.

“People-centred” development, brought to prominence at the 1995 World Summit on Social Development, remained especially critical today, as Governments, civil society and the United Nations itself worked to finalize the next generation of international targets meant to improve peoples’ lives, the Commission for Social Development heard, as it moved into day three of its fifty-third session.

Building on the dynamic momentum leading up to the adoption of new post-2015 goals, delegates debated ways to fine-tune a transformative people-centred approach to sustainable development that would leave no one behind, as the Commission on Social Development opened the second meeting of its fifty-third session today.

The Committee on Non-Governmental Organizations today deferred action on the application of two organizations for special consultative status with the Economic and Social Council, as it held a question and answer session with those entities.

The Committee on Non-Governmental Organizations today recommended 14 organizations for special consultative status with the Economic and Social Council and deferred action on the status of 34 others.

Fuelled by the voices, concerns and demands of young people, the Youth Forum wrapped up its two-day meeting today, hearing from more than 50 speakers who delved into critical issues such as gender equality and African development, as well as global and regional efforts to include and involve history’s largest youth population in building a sustainable future.

The world’s 1.8 billion young people – 90 per cent of whom lived in developing countries — were a source of innovation, hope and resilience whose power to transform economies must be unleashed in efforts to shape the post-2015 development agenda, senior United Nations officials and youth representatives alike told the Economic and Social Council’s fourth annual Youth Forum today.

The Committee on Non-Governmental Organizations recommended three organizations for special consultative status with the Economic and Social Council and deferred action on the status of 25 others, as it continued its 2015 regular session today.

Wrapping up the first week of its 2015 regular session, the Committee on Non-Governmental Organizations today recommended 11 organizations for special consultative status with the Economic and Social Council, and deferred action on 59 others.

Stressing that 2015 provided a “historic” opportunity to advance the sustainable development agenda, United Nations and Government officials shed light today on strategies to make the Organization’s development system more nimble and effective in supporting priorities in countries worldwide over the next 15 years.