Meetings Coverage

Determined structural change at the national level and a proactive stance towards global challenges were needed to “kick-start” inclusive development in predominantly agricultural countries, officials and experts said this morning as the Thirteenth Ministerial Meeting of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD XIII) held its final round table in Doha, Qatar.

Concerned that illicit cross-border trafficking in arms, drugs, chemical and biological weapons and other goods amplified threats to international peace and security posed by armed conflict, terrorism, weapons proliferation and transnational organized crime, the Security Council today invited the Secretary-General to submit, in six months, an assessment of the United Nations work to help States counter those challenges.

Speaking to the biological shift experienced by young people during the transition from adolescence from adulthood, Professor of Adolescent Health Research at Melbourne University George Patton said that youth experienced a “window of vulnerability” that lasted into the late 20s.

Noting the transformation of the past five years of the Department of Public Information into a modern communications outfit, the Department’s top official this afternoon pledged to address Member States’ requests to bolster specific programmes and offices while calling on Governments to help with that process.

Placing the world’s 48 poorest countries on a path to more dynamic development and enabling half of them to meet the criteria for graduation from “least-developed” status by 2020 required global solidarity in implementing favourable trade policies for their exports, as well as programmes to help them increase agricultural productivity and diversity, speakers emphasized this afternoon during a special high-level event in Doha, Qatar.

In the context of the current global financial crisis and the shifting geography of growth dynamics, Member States should embark upon “concerted and coherent” action to address current and future development challenges, experts said this morning as the Thirteenth Ministerial Meeting of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD XIII) held its third round table discussion in Doha.

The Security Council could play an important role in addressing the obstacles that women faced in being informed about — and participating in — formal conflict resolution, especially by encouraging mediators to pay more attention to gender issues, Michelle Bachelet, Under-Secretary-General and Executive Director of UN-Women, said today, as she briefed the 15-member body on recent developments in the area of women, peace and security.

The Security Council today extended the mandate of the United Nations mission in Western Sahara until 30 April 2013.

“It’s a fool’s paradise to believe that by controlling the lives of adolescents and young people, and denying them health-promoting — and perhaps life-saving — information and services, we are preserving our old way of life, or protecting the young from the dangers of the modern world,” one of among 40 speakers told the Commission on Population and Development today.

The need to fully institute multilingualism in the Organization’s information services, shore up the network of the United Nations Information Centres and increase the cost-effectiveness of the Department of Public Information were among the priority issues put forth today by delegates, as the Committee on Information continued its general debate this afternoon.