General Assembly: Meetings Coverage

Heads of State and Government called for the building of global solidarity through the United Nations to help resolve local conflicts as well as international crises, as the annual high-level debate at the General Assembly continued with its third day today.

The United Nations was committed to supporting small island developing States, at the international policy level and on the ground, through its agencies and technical cooperation projects, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told the General Assembly today.

Unblocking the long fallow Conference on Disarmament was the subject of a ministerial meeting convened today by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who urged delegations to recall that body’s status as the “undisputed home of international arms control efforts”, which even in the complex political and security context of the cold war had managed to conclude far-reaching and forward-looking treaties.

A shifting power balance and rapid globalization of threats — from economic crisis and drug trafficking to pollution and terrorism — taken together, had ushered in a new world order, challenging the United Nations to update its anachronistic structures and mindsets so it could truly lead in the twenty-first century, world leaders told the General Assembly today as it moved into day two of its annual general debate.

Achieving the United Nations ambitious agenda for a more prosperous and sustainable world free of nuclear weapons was among the great challenges of our era, and the Organization had a moral duty to pull together in a principled stand against the divisive forces, be they social, economic or geopolitical, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told world leaders as he opened the General Assembly’s week-long annual general debate today.

Amid concern that the historic promise made 10 years ago to free millions of people from the injustice of extreme poverty, hunger and disease would ring hollow without a renewed political push for success, world leaders today concluded the United Nations General Assembly meeting to review the Millennium Development Goals with a solemn pledge to take concerted action to unleash transformational change.

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon implored world leaders this morning to commit to reversing the alarming rate of biodiversity loss and rescuing the natural economy before it was too late. Conserving the planet’s species and habitat was not only central to sustainable development and the Millennium Goals, it also had the potential to generate economic gains worth trillions of dollars, he said at the General Assembly’s high-level meeting on biodiversity.

As the General Assembly gathered for the second day of its high-level review of progress towards the Millennium Development Goals, presidents, ministers and other officials urged that concrete measures be devised to assist those countries that had fallen behind in the fight against extreme deprivation.

Despite obstacles, scepticism and a fast-approaching 2015 deadline, the Millennium Development Goals could be achieved if the global community stayed true to the promise made a decade ago to end the dehumanizing conditions of poverty by making smart investments in infrastructure, opening export markets and generally rethinking conventional wisdom, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told world leaders today as he opened the General Assembly’s high-level meeting to take stock of progress.

Poverty eradication and other development issues, climate change and the international financial and trade systems were among key topics approved for consideration by the General Assembly’s Second Committee this afternoon as it adopted its organization of work for the sixty-fifth session.