Meetings Coverage

Continuing its 2012 organizational session, the Economic and Social Council this afternoon elected by secret ballot Francisco Thoumi (Colombia) to serve effective immediately as a member of the International Narcotics Control Board until 15 March 2012.

In the face of the continuing “fragility” of the global economy following recent economic crises, Member States called today for financial flows oriented towards supporting inclusive and sustainable development as the Thirteenth Ministerial Meeting of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD XIII) closed in Doha, Qatar.

Hervé Ladsous, Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations, briefed the Security Council today on the situation in Darfur, calling on the signatory parties to the Doha Document for Peace in Darfur to live up to their commitment to implement the 2011 agreement for the sake of the region’s “long suffering” people.

To further Security Council support for Côte d’Ivoire’s fragile peace process, members today unanimously adopted a set of renewed and modified sanctions and extended an expert panel’s mandate to monitor the situation.

The nearly week-long debate in the Population Commission heard Member States, experts and United Nations agency heads weigh in on the spectrum of concerns facing adolescents and youth, with the hope reinforced today that efforts made to embed credible, cohesive policies into global, national and local strategies were an investment in youth certain to yield positive results.

Resuming its 2012 organizational session, the Economic and Social Council filled vacancies in 20 of its subsidiary bodies and adopted themes for some items of its upcoming substantive session. It also postponed until Friday afternoon elections for a member of the Commission on Narcotic Drugs.

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.