Meetings Coverage

Despite high unemployment, rising crime and socio-economic woes arising from the global financial crisis and natural disasters, the Bahamas had steadily improved the lot of its women through a range of legal reforms, awareness-raising campaigns and action plans, members of the country’s delegation told the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women today.

The Security Council today, just hours before the expiration of the 90-day mandate of the United Nations observer mission in Syria, agreed on a resolution to keep the mission in place for a final 30 days, while indicating further renewals will be possible only if it can be confirmed that the use of heavy weapons has ceased and a reduction in violence by all sides was sufficient to permit it to implement its mandate.

Expressing grave concern at the increasing number of people affected by humanitarian emergencies, the Economic and Social Council today pressed the United Nations and Member States — by a consensus resolution — to bolster partnerships and further develop common mechanisms to assess the needs of the affected communities in order to ensure the effective use of resources, as it concluded its three-day humanitarian affairs segment.

Balancing the position of women in the national culture against step-by-step advances in their political participation, while ensuring that rural women participated in development, Samoa was meeting its obligations under the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, the country’s delegation said today.

Iraq has “much to be proud of” in the progress and achievements of recent years, but determined domestic leadership was needed in order to overcome challenges in governance, human rights and sustainable development, and the United Nations role was “more important than ever”, the Special Representative of the Secretary-General told the Security Council this afternoon.

Due to negative votes from two permanent members, the Security Council today failed to adopt a resolution that would have extended the mandate of the United Nations Supervision Mission in Syria (UNSMIS) and which would have threatened sanctions on the country if demands to end the spiralling violence were not met.

Urging the leaders of the Greek and Turkish Cypriot communities to work towards “decisive progress” on the core issues that divided them, the Security Council this morning extended the mandate of the United Nations Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus (UNFICYP) for a further period ending 30 January 2013.

Reaching people most in need during complex crises — sparked by conflict, extreme weather or natural disaster — required humanitarian actors to better use, validate and share information from a range of sources throughout the programming cycle, the Economic and Social Council heard today during a dynamic panel discussion on improving the capacities of evidence-based humanitarian decision-making.

Common ground had emerged even as diverging views, multiple proposals and intense debate continued with a view to hammering out a legally-binding conventional arms agreement, delegates were told today, during an update on negotiations, as the United Nations Conference on the Arms Trade Treaty neared the end of its third week of meetings.

New Zealand continued to uphold its proud record in women’s empowerment, with a high ranking in the Global Gender Gap report for 2011, its continuing efforts to increase female leadership in politics and the private sector and its solid progress in closing the gender pay gap, members of that country’s delegation told the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women today.