Meetings Coverage

An hour before it was due to go into effect, the Security Council today endorsed the cessation of hostilities agreement aimed at ending five years of bloodshed in Syria.

The most important elements of the Security Council’s work in February were still to come, speakers said during the 15-member organ’s monthly “wrap-up” meeting today.

The Security Council extended the mandate of the United Nations Integrated Peacebuilding Office in Guinea-Bissau (UNIOGBIS) for one year today, amid a political crisis in that country and ahead of the Council’s visit to West Africa in March.

The Special Committee on Decolonization should intensify action-oriented dialogue with the aim of generating further momentum to fulfil the United Nations decolonization mandate, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said in a statement read out on his behalf at the opening of that body’s 2016 session today.

The Economic and Social Council concluded its three-day operational activities segment today, with Governments calling on the United Nations to “fundamentally reshape” its development system by outlining new policy directions and partnerships that increased the efficiency, coherence and funding of the Organization’s 27 programmes, funds and specialized agencies.

Welcoming the nationwide ceasefire agreement due to take effect in Syria on Saturday, the United Nations humanitarian chief described the development today as a long-awaited, optimistic sign for millions suffering in the war-torn country.

Concluding its annual session today, the Special Committee on the Charter of the United Nations and on Strengthening the Role of the Organization adopted its 2015 draft report and forwarded its recommendations to the General Assembly.

The Security Council today extended for one year its sanctions on those threatening stability in Yemen, as well as the mandate of the Panel of Experts assisting the committee charged with overseeing those measures.

Member States and the United Nations must stop viewing peacebuilding solely as a post-conflict activity and focus more on coordinated programming and funding to prevent war and relapse into conflict, speakers in the Security Council said today.

The United Nations must manage protracted crises more effectively, and overcome operational and funding silos to achieve lasting solutions, speakers in the Economic and Social Council agreed today, calling upon all entities to “deliver as one”.