General Assembly

Delegates in the Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) today considered the 2024 budget implications of six outputs of the First Committee’s (Disarmament and International Security) 2023 session that — if adopted by the General Assembly — would deliver just over $1 million to help verify nuclear disarmament, curb an arms race in outer space and meet the challenges created by lethal autonomous weapons systems.  These five resolutions and one decision would also address the legacy of nuclear weapons and support the Open-ended Working Group on security of and in the use of information and communications technologies 2021–2025, which was set up through an Assembly resolution.

Delegates in the Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) today voiced their concerns with the Secretariat’s proposal to decrease the 2024 budget of the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals by 22 per cent to $63.9 million while cutting dozens of posts without following General Assembly resolutions on the nationalization of staff.

The Group of 77 and China today expressed concern in the Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) about cost overruns for Umoja, the UN’s enterprise resource planning system, and requested the Secretariat elaborate on its strategic outlook and the longer-term improvements and investments foreseen until 2030.

Member States today called for collective will to address cumulative pressures on oceans and their resources, which pose direct threats to people who depend on them, as the General Assembly adopted two draft resolutions in a joint debate on oceans and the law of the sea as well as sustainable fisheries.

Delegates in the Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) today threw their support behind the Secretariat’s request for nearly $21 million to let special political missions in Haiti and Colombia carry out expanded mandates in 2024. Representatives also backed $3.67 million in additional funding to support two General Assembly resolutions approved during its seventy-seventh session to help revitalize the Assembly’s work and to turn a global marine biodiversity pact into a reality.

With the sustainability of the non-proliferation regime under strain, the geopolitical context unpredictable, and perils to peace capricious and complex, the General Assembly today adopted 55 resolutions and 1 decision on the recommendation of its First Committee (Disarmament and International Security) with most failing to achieve consensus.

The General Assembly today designated 7 September as World Duchenne Awareness Day, to be observed as a United Nations day every year, beginning in 2024, as it held its annual debate on global health, with speakers expressing deep alarm over the persistent and deadly spread of tuberculosis.

Optimistic that interlinked reform processes juxtaposed with improved service delivery within the United Nations will reinvigorate the Sustainable Development Goals at all levels and redirect savings towards development and carrying out the UN’s mandate, delegates in the Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) today called for more detailed information and data on the concept.

Peace and security can never be achieved by “wiping out Gaza” or by crushing the skulls of infants and shedding the blood of children, the Permanent Observer of the State of Palestine told a special meeting of the Palestinian Rights Committee today to observe the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People.

Opening a day-long meeting on the question of Palestine, the General Assembly President warned that the longer the fear, distrust, appetite for revenge, hatred and anxiety fester and further deepen, the more lethal the psychological chasm grows, and the darker the shadow it will cast over generations to come.