General Assembly: Meetings Coverage

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.

Acting on the recommendations of its General Committee, the United Nations General Assembly this morning adopted the work programme and agenda for its sixty-fifth session, which contains nearly 124 items.

The Peacebuilding Commission established a country configuration for Liberia this morning to implement priorities set out in letters from the Government of Liberia and the Security Council dated 27 May and 19 July 2010, respectively.

With countries gradually recovering from the global economic and financial crisis, the General Assembly had the duty to deliver results in its pursuit of achieving the Millennium Development Goals, reforming United Nations power structures and promoting sustainable development, incoming Assembly President Joseph Deiss stressed today as he opened the 192-member body’s sixty-fifth session.

Encouraged by political leaders’ strong support for the United Nations as the centre stage of dialogue and collective action to address the world’s multiple challenges, outgoing General Assembly President Ali Abdussalam Treki today implored the 192-member body, as the only global organ with a truly global agenda, to continue to innovate, build consensus and implement its resolutions to “stem the erosion of its authority”.

In a flurry of activity before the opening tomorrow of its sixty-fifth session, the General Assembly adopted three resolutions and two decisions today on issues related to the layout of its upcoming high-level meetings on the Millennium Development Goals, the Mauritius Strategy for the Sustainable Development of Small Island Developing States, and the International Year of Biodiversity, among others.

The United Nations General Assembly today welcomed the European Union’s readiness to facilitate dialogue between Serbia and Kosovo over the province’s unilateral declaration of independence, saying that the process of such talks would itself be a factor for peace, security and stability in the Balkan region.

Acting on a request by Azerbaijan, the General Assembly decided today to defer to its sixty-fifth session consideration of a draft resolution on “observance of international law and international human rights law in the occupied territories of Azerbaijan”.

In one round of balloting today, the General Assembly elected Joan Donoghue of the United States as a member of the International Court of Justice, in an election run independently of, but concurrently with, the Security Council.