General Assembly: Meetings Coverage

The Organizational Committee of the third session of the Peacebuilding Commission elected Peter Maurer (Switzerland) by acclamation on Monday as Chair of the country-specific configuration on Burundi, replacing Anders Lidén of Sweden.

With a heavy heart and a sense of outrage, General Assembly President Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann today urged the world community to consider ways to effect the peaceful restoration of Honduran President Jose Manuel Zelaya, as he convened a meeting of the Assembly to consider the situation following that leader’s ouster by a military-led coup d’état Sunday.

Struggling to recover from steep declines in export earnings, tax revenues and overall economic growth, delegates from developing and middle-income countries alike today pressed rich nations to dismantle protectionist trade measures and fulfil pledges for official development assistance to avert a humanitarian catastrophe, as the plenary debate of the Conference on the World Financial and Economic Crisis and Its Impact on Development continued at United Nations Headquarters.

Asking the donor community to keep funds flowing, top officials from United Nations agencies, speaking at a round table discussion this morning on the Organization’s development response to the crisis, warned that business as usual would not be enough to maintain traction on development.

With the world facing the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, Government leaders and senior ministers meeting at United Nations Headquarters in New York today agreed on a sweeping action plan to help blunt the impact of the economic downturn, especially for developing counties, but “in the interest of all nations [...] to achieve more inclusive, equitable, balanced, development-oriented and sustainable economic development to help overcome poverty and inequality”.

Following several weeks of intense consultations, the Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) this afternoon recommended to the General Assembly a peacekeeping budget approaching $7.8 billion for the period from 1 July 2009 to 30 June 2010.

As it wrestled to design a response to the multidimensional and unprecedented global economic downturn, a panel of United Nations and financial experts from several intergovernmental organizations stressed today that, in order to be successful, the world community would have to employ a multifaceted approach addressing employment, trade, investment and development.

Calling for vigorous international cooperation to blunt the fallout from the global financial crisis, a panel of senior United Nations officials and Government experts today highlighted strategies –- ranging from a temporary moratorium on debt repayment to increased South-South trade and targeted policymaking -– that could help developing countries strengthen their economies, bolster their financial systems and protect their most vulnerable citizens during the economic downturn.

Decrying a world economic order that had rewarded the powerful, marginalized the poor and promoted an unbridled capitalism that ignited unprecedented financial contagion, General Assembly delegates today urged swift and concerted measures to restructure international finance bodies and forge people-centred policies that addressed human security.

Experts addressing the role of the 192 United Nations Member States in the global economic architecture said today that reforming the financial and economic systems would require some States to give up part of their “voice” so that others could be heard, as Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz asserted that “failure to create adequate institutions for managing globalization has put the global economy at risk”.