Meetings Coverage

The Security Council today extended until 15 December 2015 the mandate of the United Nations peacekeeping operation for the disputed Abyei area bordering Sudan and South Sudan.

ADDIS ABABA, 13 July — Opening the Third International Conference on Financing for Development in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, this morning, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called on the senior national and international officials assembled to together forge a framework for a “sustainable world free of poverty”.

The 2015 high-level segment of the Economic and Social Council concluded today with interactive national voluntary presentations and a thematic discussion on ways of strengthening and building institutions for policy integration in the post-2015 sustainable development agenda, capping week-long deliberations that Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said had helped to outline how the forum could organize its work, keep track of progress and bolster implementation.

With Burundi “back on the brink”, all political stakeholders in that country needed to put national well-being above narrow ambitions in order to preserve the hard-won gains towards building democratic institutions and a common community, the Security Council heard today from two top United Nations officials.

Using the lessons learned from the Millennium Development Goals as a springboard, the post-2015 sustainable development agenda must build a “new paradigm” that left no one behind, stressed speakers as the Economic and Social Council’s Annual Ministerial Review continued with four thematic panels today.

The High-level Political Forum for Sustainable Development closed its eight-day annual session today with the adoption of a declaration that committed ministers from around the world to establishing a “strong, universal, ambitious, inclusive and people-centred” post-2015 development agenda that completed the unfinished business of the Millennium Development Goals and responded to new challenges.

During a meeting held to commemorate the twentieth anniversary of the massacres in Srebrenica, the Security Council today failed to adopt a resolution that would have emphasized acceptance of those tragic events as genocide as a prerequisite for national reconciliation in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Continuing attacks by Boko Haram, risks of election instability in several nations, transnational organized crime and Ebola were current top concerns in West Africa, a United Nations official in the region told the Security Council this afternoon.

The High-level Political Forum, convened under the auspices of the Economic and Social Council, must provide robust monitoring and follow-up to the post-2015 sustainable development agenda while taking into consideration the national realities and priorities of States, said speakers as the Forum opened its general debate this afternoon.

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today launched the 2015 Millennium Development Goals Report as the Economic and Social Council began a three-day ministerial segment of its High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development, with two related panel discussions on stakeholder roles and emerging challenges.