General Assembly: Meetings Coverage

The real test of success in the political process between Israel and Palestine would come after the conclusion of negotiations currently taking place in Washington, D.C., the Permanent Observer for the State of Palestine said today, voicing hope that the cynics who believed the current talks would go the way of previous rounds of dialogue would be proved wrong.

The amusement and laughter likely to follow the designation of 19 November as “World Toilet Day” would all be worthwhile if people’s attention was drawn to the fact that 2.5 billion people lacked proper sanitation and 1.1 billion were forced to defecate in the open, the General Assembly heard today.

Closing the Conference of States Parties to the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities today, its President told delegations that the lessons learned over the last three days needed to be taken home and implemented.

Many international development frameworks, including the Millennium Development Goals, overlooked disability, and the post-2015 period must provide equal opportunity for every person, Israel’s Permanent Representative said today as he co-chaired a round table discussion on disability-inclusive development.

Many of the 1 billion disabled people around the world lacked the protections to which they were entitled, even though 132 countries had ratified the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, a senior official of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs said as the Conference of States Parties to that treaty opened its 2013 session today.

The time had come to move away from “constructive” to “transformative” dialogue between civil society and Member States on the issue of international migration and development, according to non-governmental organization representatives who addressed the General Assembly today.

The General Assembly this morning adopted two resolutions by consensus ‑ the first outlining the format and organizational aspects of a High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development to replace the Commission on Sustainable Development, as mandated by the outcome document of the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20) last year, and the second reaffirming the role of the United Nations in global economic governance.

Stark disparities and widening gaps between the world’s rich and poor were a “reproach to the promise of the United Nations Charter”, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon warned the General Assembly today during a thematic debate on inequality.

Concluding its second resumed substantive session, the Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) today recommended financial arrangements for 14 United Nations peacekeeping operations for the year beginning 1 July 2013 and ending 30 June 2014, which, once approved by the General Assembly, would exceed the previous year’s figure due to the addition of a new mission for Mali.

Acting on the recommendations of its Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary), the General Assembly today adopted its peacekeeping budget for the period 1 July 2013 to 30 June 2014.