Meetings Coverage

Advances in science and technology not only improved living conditions in both developed and developing countries, but enhanced the lives of migrants and enabled progress towards internationally agreed development goals, a senior official of the Economic and Social Council told Population and Development Commission members in today’s session.

With the quest to unite the African continent and transform it into a region of economic prosperity and social justice never closer to fulfilment, senior United Nations officials today hailed the “rise of a new Africa”, but also called on the international community to engage much more resolutely to help bring to an end the conflicts that continued to tragically claim the lives of so many Africans.

Resuming its 2013 organizational session, the Economic and Social Council met this morning to hold elections to fill vacant seats in its subsidiary bodies and adopt themes for some items of its upcoming substantive session.

As the “grim” tragedy inside Syria continued to deteriorate, it was even more vital that all parties worked collectively to preserve stability in the Middle East, Jeffrey Feltman, Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs, told the Security Council today, stressing that advancing the Israeli-Palestinian peace process was central to ensuring the region did not risk further destabilization.

The increasingly complex movement of international migrants — who now flowed circuitously between countries, bringing with them skills, ideas and capital — had a profound impact on families and communities around the world, declared speakers today as the Commission on Population and Development continued its forty-sixth session.

The dual face of migration, providing wide-ranging opportunities for development but also dangers, was emphasized today as delegates in the Commission on Population and Development shared their national experiences on a broad array of trends in the demographics of migration.

The United Nations’ Department of Public Information must perform a balancing act in expanding multilingual coverage of issues within the existing financial and human resources and finding the right mix of traditional and new media to tackle emerging communication challenges, delegates told the Committee on Information today as it concluded its general debate.

Market solutions alone were not enough to handle the problems caused by excessive sovereign debt, a Nobel Prize-winning economist told delegates at a special meeting of the Economic and Social Council today.

Harnessing the rapidly evolving opportunities presented by migration must be a key component of the post-2015 development agenda, speakers emphasized today as the Commission on Population and Development opened its forty-sixth annual session.

Through new media, multilingual information platforms, and stronger partnerships with Member States, the Department of Public Information was conveying the United Nations’ message to global audiences in a more cost-effective and coordinated way, its senior communications official told the Committee on Information as it opened its annual session this morning.