The global climate emergency as well as zero-sum geopolitics, declining development assistance and rising global debt set the backdrop for world leaders as the General Assembly began the annual general debate for its seventy-fourth session, with many calling for solidarity to meet the planet’s most pressing challenges.
The Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) concluded the main part of its seventy‑fourth session on Friday, approving resources totalling $3.07 billion for 2020, its first annual budget since 1973 and $200 million more than the $2.87 billion outlay proposed by Secretary‑General António Guterres in early October.
Concluding the main part of its seventy-fourth session, the General Assembly adopted 22 resolutions and one decision recommended by its main Committees, including a $3.07 billion regular budget for the Secretariat in 2020, some $200 million more than the amount requested by the Secretary-General.
The General Assembly decided today to defer its recess and to extend the work of its Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) until Friday, 27 December.
The Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) briefly met today to inform Member States of the extension of its work until Friday, 27 December.
As waning multilateralism and burgeoning inequalities threaten to side-track the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the General Assembly today adopted 47 resolutions and four related decisions aimed at bolstering nation’s efforts to reach agreed goals.
The General Assembly proclaimed 2022‑2032 as the International Decade of Indigenous Languages today, inviting indigenous peoples — as custodians — to initiate ideas for preserving this endangered facet of their cultural and social life, as it adopted 60 resolutions and one decision recommended by its Third Committee (Social, Humanitarian and Cultural).
Reaffirming the crucial role of international law and the United Nations efforts to promote those principles, the General Assembly today adopted, without a vote, 17 draft resolutions and 9 draft decisions recommended by its Sixth Committee (Legal), as well a text related to the work of the Credentials Committee.
The United Nations ability to carry out its mandate has been constrained by cash shortages in 2018 and 2019, its top official for accounting-related activities warned the Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) today, as the representative of the Russian Federation challenged the way the Organization is managing the liquidity crisis.
At today’s Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) meeting, Japan’s delegate expressed her concerns with a Secretariat request to approve $64.5 million in new charges against the contingency fund set aside for the Organization’s upcoming 2020 regular budget.
