General Assembly

Faced with socio-economic fallout from increasingly frequent and severe disasters, Governments must invest in disaster risk reduction and weave it into their development agendas in order to save more lives and build a sustainable world, a top aide to the United Nations Secretary-General told a gathering on disaster risk reduction today.

With more than a billion hungry people around the world now facing increasingly unstable food prices, collective will was needed to end excessive market speculation in food and other commodities, experts emphasized today as the General Assembly took stock of the “human tragedy” disproportionately affecting the world’s poorest and most vulnerable.

Acting on the recommendations of its Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary), the General Assembly this afternoon adopted a resolution advocating for a culture of accountability throughout the United Nations system, while affirming the need for the Assembly’s prior approval for any changes to the Secretariat’s overall departmental structure and programme budget.

The United Nations Disarmament Commission reached an agreement on a provisional agenda for the work of its 2012 substantive session today, ending a three-day-long stalemate that some feared would jeopardize the body’s ability to continue its work.

Despite the inability of the Disarmament Commission by the close of day three of its session today to adopt a substantive agenda, it continued its general debate along with informal rounds of talks aimed at framing its item on nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation in language satisfactory to all.

Top United Nations officials pressed Governments, the private sector and civil society to take coordinated and consistent measures in combating human trafficking, as they gathered today for a General Assembly interactive dialogue on defeating a scourge that had trapped an estimated 2.4 million people worldwide.

Eager to begin its work in earnest today, the United Nations Disarmament Commission opened its general debate segment without agreement on the substantive aspects of its agenda, following two days of intensive discussion aimed at bridging positions and organizing priorities on a formulation acceptable to all.

The past six months had seen an active, responsive General Assembly that had been relevant in addressing many of the key global issues of concern to all, its President, Nassir Abdulaziz al-Nasser (Qatar), said at Headquarters today, pledging a redoubling of efforts to achieve success on all remaining matters on the organ’s agenda in the remaining six months of its current session.

Following two weeks of protracted, closed-door discussions, the Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) this evening concluded the first resumed part of its sixty-sixth session by approving a resolution that stressed the importance of promoting a culture of accountability in the United Nations Secretariat and called on the Secretary-General to improve his reporting on progress to that end.

Conjuring images of the potentially “monstrous” effects of global nuclear fallout, speakers at the opening of the 2012 substantive session of the United Nations Disarmament Commission stressed that, after a dozen fruitless consecutive sessions, the body could waste no more time remaining gripped by deadlock or mired in repeated iterations of national interests.