General Assembly

ROME, 28 February — As the United Nations Seminar on Assistance to the Palestinian People continued today, experts highlighted the complex challenges of developing a self-sustaining economy under occupation and outlined programmes aimed at rebuilding the severely eroded Palestinian agriculture sector, ensuring high governance standards and generating donor support for reconstruction of Gaza.

ROME, 27 February — The situations that triggered humanitarian strife in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip — severe restrictions on movement and constraints on livelihoods — were man-made: the consequence of Israel’s occupation, experts said today as the United Nations Seminar on Assistance to the Palestinian People held its first plenary session.

ROME, 27 February — With cash-starved Palestinian institutions standing on “political quicksand”, and mounting tensions in the West Bank over settlement construction and the recent death of a Palestinian prisoner in Israeli custody, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urged the parties to refrain from actions that could undermine the prospects of reopening long-stalled peace negotiations.

Opening the 2013 substantive session of the Special Committee on Decolonization, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today called on that body to devise “fresh and creative” approaches in mobilizing the political will needed to eradicate colonialism, saying it had no place in the modern world.

The General Assembly today decided that a special session on the follow-up to the Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population and Development will be held on 22 September 2014 in New York “in the most efficient and cost-effective manner”.

The views of troop- and police-contributing countries must be reflected at all levels of United Nations peacekeeping operations — not just on the ground but also at Headquarters — the Special Committee on Peacekeeping Operations heard as it concluded its general debate today.

Launching today the 2013 International Year of Quinoa, senior United Nations officials joined South American leaders to praise the nutritional value of the ancient “superfood”, which Bolivian President Evo Morales hailed as an “ancestral gift from the Andes to the world” — a low-cost response to global hunger and the starting point for a more equitable international economic system, especially the food trade.

With the United Nations peacekeeping machinery confronted by increasing demands and a range of emerging conflicts — and potentially poised to consider new engagements in Mali, Syria and the Horn of Africa — the Special Committee on Peacekeeping Operations opened its 2013 substantive session today amid discussion of critical and evolving issues, including reimbursements for troops and equipment, and civilian capacity in the aftermath of conflict.

While the General Assembly’s recent decision to enhance the status of Palestine at the United Nations had “resonated deeply” within the Organization, international re-engagement would be meaningless without serious commitments by the parties concerned to advance the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said today.

The new Chair of the Peacebuilding Commission today urged members to “put our heads together” on ways to reinforce the body’s founding vision — providing strategic advice and harnessing expertise and financing to help post-conflict countries avoid sliding back into war or chaos — so that in 2013, the Commission could gain its rightful place within the United Nations peacebuilding architecture and beyond.