General Assembly: Meetings Coverage

Since launching a five-year peacekeeping management road map in 2010, the United Nations had improved the cost-effectiveness and affordability of its blue-helmet operations without reducing their operational performance or ability to carry out their mandates, a top United Nations peacekeeping official told the Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) today as it took up cross-cutting issues related to peacekeeping financing.

Delegates offered a range of views on how to better manage the United Nations budget for both active and closed peacekeeping missions, as the Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) opened the second part of its resumed sixty-sixth session this morning and adopted its programme of work.

Concluding its annual two-week session, the Committee on Information today reaffirmed the 1946 resolution establishing the Department of Public Information to promote an informed understanding of the work and purposes of the United Nations among the peoples of the world and, towards that goal, called on the Department to expand multilingualism, partnerships, efficiency, communications infrastructure and the use of new technology, especially in developing countries.

In the wake of the Israeli Government’s announcement to grant legal status to three settlement outposts in the occupied West Bank, the Security Council must resolve to condemn Israel’s illegal settlement activity, Riyad Mansour, Permanent Observer of Palestine to the United Nations, told the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People this afternoon.

The Meeting of States Parties to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights today elected Yadh Ben Achour (Tunisia) to the Human Rights Committee, replacing one member who had passed away before completing his four-year term of office.

During a “jam session” of ideas at Headquarters this afternoon, musicians and musical scholars shed light on the role of jazz music in bridging communities and cultures and encouraging tolerance and social change.

The General Assembly today, meeting concurrently with the Security Council, elected Dalveer Bhandari of India to a seat on the International Court of Justice for a term beginning immediately through 5 February 2018.

Noting the transformation of the past five years of the Department of Public Information into a modern communications outfit, the Department’s top official this afternoon pledged to address Member States’ requests to bolster specific programmes and offices while calling on Governments to help with that process.

The need to fully institute multilingualism in the Organization’s information services, shore up the network of the United Nations Information Centres and increase the cost-effectiveness of the Department of Public Information were among the priority issues put forth today by delegates, as the Committee on Information continued its general debate this afternoon.

Through the strategic use of resources, digital technologies, social media platforms and enhanced partnerships with United Nations system offices and external media outlets, the Department of Public Information was expanding and improving the way it conveyed the United Nations message worldwide, the Organization’s senior communications official told the Committee on Information as it opened its annual session this morning.