Meetings Coverage

Starting the second week of its 2012 substantive session, the Committee on Non-Governmental Organizations today recommend special consultative status with the Economic and Social Council for seven organizations, and roster status for another, while postponing consideration of 20 other applications, pending receipt of additional information from the civil society groups.

Sidelined for too long, the rights of people with disabilities must be fully integrated into the development policy road maps to be hammered out at the upcoming United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development and at next year’s General Assembly High-level Meeting on Disability and Development, Shuaib Chalklen, Special Rapporteur on Disability, told the Commission for Social Development today.

The Committee on Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) today recommended special consultative status with the Economic and Social Council for four organizations and general consultative status for two others, while postponing consideration of 16 other applications pending receipt of additional information from the civil society groups.

Decent and productive employment — coupled with safety nets for protecting the most vulnerable — should be at the core of efforts to eradicate poverty, speakers said today as the Commission for Social Development continued its general debate, while warning that global economic woes now threatened the very existence of such initiatives.

The Committee on Non-Governmental Organizations today continued the process of vetting the dozens of applications before it, recommending special consultative status with the Economic and Social Council for 26 organizations which had been deferred from previous sessions owing to questions posed by the 19-member body.

As the gap between rich and poor widened and one third of the global workforce remained either unemployed or mired in poverty, the international community must ramp up action to create jobs, ensure social protection and foster economic recovery, Deputy Secretary-General Asha-Rose Migiro told the Commission for Social Development as it opened its fiftieth session today.

The Committee on Non-Governmental Organizations continued its consideration of new applications for consultative status with the Economic and Social Council today, recommending 15 more non-governmental organizations (NGOs) for special consultative status and postponing consideration of 45, owing to probes ranging from the political aspects underpinning a humanitarian organization’s work to how another monitored cases of international law violations and war crimes.

High-level officials from the United States, the United Kingdom, France and other Member States converged on the Security Council today to press for the adoption of a draft resolution that would support a plan by the League of Arab States to stem the bloodshed in Syria, and which calls on the country’s President to step aside as part of a democratic transition process.

The Committee on Non-Governmental Organizations today continued its careful scrutiny of applicants seeking consultative status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council, adding 37 new organizations to the more than 3,500 NGOs admitted since the Committee’s launch in 1946, while postponing consideration of 43 new applications pending responses to questions posed by Committee members.