General Assembly: Meetings Coverage

The incoming Chair of the Peacebuilding Commission today pledged to strengthen that body’s role within the United Nations in order to resolve disputes and restore peace and hope to nations emerging from conflict.

“As we enter a new year, I am very concerned at the lack of progress towards peace between Israel and the Palestinians,” United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said today.

Welcoming the genuine contribution of the International Organization of la Francophonie to United Nations efforts in countries like Haiti, Côte d’Ivoire and Democratic Republic of the Congo, the General Assembly today invited the Secretaries General of those international bodies to continue exchanging information with a view to identifying new areas of cooperation.

The Secretary-General of the upcoming Fourth United Nations Conference on the Least Developed Countries today praised those nations for showing “their ownership and leadership” in submitting a comprehensive, ambitious and forward-looking draft programme of action to be adopted at the May event.

Amid widespread concern that more of the world’s poorest nations had not graduated to the next stage of socio-economic development in the last 10 years, officials from developing countries pressed today for the fulfilment of development assistance pledges, reform of trade policies and the transfer of technology, while urging the United Nations to help devise specially tailored strategies to help ease the transition to prosperity.

The upcoming Fourth United Nations Conference on the Least Developed Countries, which would determine the development paradigm for years to come, must come up with concrete ways to achieve sustainable economic prosperity in those 48 nations and improve the lot of their millions of poor people, the Secretary-General of the Conference said at the opening session of its Intergovernmental Preparatory Meeting.

The Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) today wrapped up the main part of a sixty-fifth session that aimed to boost the Organization’s efficiency by overhauling how tens of thousands of staff around the globe are hired, trained and paid, while continuing to modernize its outdated information and communications technology system.

Wrapping up the main part of the sixty-fifth session, General Assembly President Joseph Deiss (Switzerland) hailed the “constructive and cooperative spirit” that had prevailed over three months of critical, and at times challenging, deliberations on a range of issues, from poverty eradication and human rights to sustainable development and disarmament.

Acting on a number of outstanding plenary-generated decisions and administrative matters, the General Assembly this morning elected members to the Peacebuilding Commission, adopted resolutions on cooperation between the United Nations and regional entities, and outlined its plans for a major four-year push to assess, strengthen and reaffirm support for the world body’s historic 1994 action plan on population and development.

The Thirteenth Meeting of States Parties to the Convention on the Rights of the Child today elected nine members to the Committee on the Rights of the Child.