General Assembly

The General Assembly closed its main session midday Saturday with the adoption of a $5.15 billion United Nations budget for the 2012-2013 biennium and an unexpected intervention by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who commended Member States for having risen to that challenge with “energy, creativity and an indispensable willingness to make the hard choices”.

The developing world’s vulnerability to the prevailing multiple global crises and preparations for the June 2012 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development were prominent among the concerns of the Second Committee (Economic and Financial) as the 42 draft resolutions and 4 draft decisions it had recommended for action by the General Assembly were adopted today.

From being increasingly vocal on human rights to taking decisions on tackling non-communicable diseases, the General Assembly had taken great strides in its current session during an “eventful and demanding” year for the United Nations, the Assembly President told journalists today at Headquarters. Speaking at a year-end press conference, Nasser Abdulaziz al-Nasser outlined some of the achievements made over the first three months of his tenure.

Hailing the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme as “too important to fail”, delegates in the General Assembly today praised the Process for having significantly reduced the scope of the conflict diamond trade, while expressing concern that a major civil society partner had pulled out of the United Nations-backed diamond industry initiative in 2011 to demonstrate lack of confidence.

As the Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) this afternoon took stock of the financing needs of the United Nations Operation in Côte d’Ivoire (UNOCI), delegates urged approval of the Secretary-General’s proposed amounts to keep that operation running until the end of next June.

The General Assembly today adopted 63 resolutions and 9 decisions recommended by its Third Committee (Social, Humanitarian and Cultural), including a text that strongly condemned “continued grave and systematic” human rights violations in Syria and called for an immediate end to all violence in that country.

While agreeing that the current funding and backstopping arrangements for the United Nations special political missions were inadequate, delegates in the Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) today argued over how to rectify that situation and offered diverging views on the Secretary-General’s proposals for doing so.

Against the backdrop of a rapidly changing world order, the United Nations must strengthen its role at the centre of global economic governance in order to maintain its incomparable legitimacy, many speakers said during a General Assembly meeting today.

Palestinian efforts for full membership of the United Nations and its agencies was not a provocation but rather the exercise of their legal right to sovereignty and independence, Riyad Mansour, head of the Permanent Observer Mission of Palestine, assured the Palestinian Rights Committee today.

Only by streamlining responses to the world’s complex humanitarian landscape would the needs of those affected by disasters and emergencies be met, speakers stressed today as the General Assembly adopted four resolutions relating to humanitarian assistance.