General Assembly

As the General Assembly gathered to mark the 15th anniversary of the Beijing Platform for Action which remains the most far-reaching international commitment to women’s rights senior United Nations officials today told hundreds of women delegates that the fight against the disadvantages they still faced must continue, because gender equality and empowerment of women and girls was not just a goal in itself, but a key to long-term development, economic growth, and social advancement for all.

The United Nations had agreed that 2011-2020 would be the global Decade of Action for Road Safety, a panel of international partners working towards that goal said at a Headquarters press conference today.

The Fifth Committee (Budgetary and Administrative) today began the first part of its resumed session, expected to last three weeks, approving the first week of its programme of work and taking up the report of the Joint Inspection Unit for 2009 and programme of work for 2010.

Taking note of the Secretary-General’s recent inconclusive report on investigations into possible violations of international law during the deadly 2008/2009 conflict in Gaza, the General Assembly today requested a further report in five months.

The following statement was issued on 24 February by the Bureau of the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People, in connection with the announcement by the Government of Israel concerning religious sites in the Occupied Palestinian Territory:

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said today that 2010 would be an important year for the Special Committee on Decolonization because it marked both the end of the Second International Decade for the Eradication of Colonialism and the fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples.

United Nations peacekeepers were performing commendably despite the complexity of mandates and the lack of key capabilities, the representative of Bangladesh told the Special Committee on Peacekeeping Operations today as it concluded its general debate. He said that prevailing mismatches between complex mandates and resources might be overcome through careful study and building up the required capabilities.

The General Assembly this afternoon recognized the International Day of Nowruz, a spring festival of Persian origin, and moved back the dates of the next high-level dialogue on Financing for Development, as it continued its sixty-fourth session.

With the United Nations peacekeeping architecture stretched and under increasing stress, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon had developed an “ambitious, forward-looking” agenda to better enable it to contain violence, protect civilians and help national actors build peace after conflict, the head of the world body’s peacekeeping operations said today as the Special Committee on Peacekeeping Operations opened its 2010 substantive session.

The United Nations Meeting, having assumed the task of considering the urgency of addressing the permanent status issues in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, did not hesitate to wade into that difficult terrain, managing to produce in the end some fresh ideas, unbound by the constraints of intergovernmental diplomacy.