Meetings Coverage and Press Releases

In progress at UNHQ

Meetings Coverage

DEV/2894

Suffering Will Continue in Least Developed Countries Unless They Unleash Women’s Power to Impact Development, Thematic Debate Hears in Istanbul

ISTANBUL, 12 May — As central managers of families and communities, women held the key to unlocking human development potential, but unless they were equally empowered to access financial, social and health services, and engaged — from the start — in decisions that affected their lives, least developed countries would remain powerless to unleash it, said participants in the last of six high-level thematic debates held during the Fourth United Nations Conference on the Least Developed Countries.

DEV/2893

‘Here in Istanbul, as Chapter Closes on Brussels, We Have Opportunity to Rewrite Fate of Least Developed Countries,’ Conference Hears

ISTANBUL, 12 May — With negotiators edging towards consensus on the outcome of the United Nations Conference on the Least Developed Countries, speakers today used the gathering’s penultimate plenary session to press for a 10-year action plan grounded in sound policies that ensured delivery on past pledges for development assistance and brought down the barriers blocking their paths to economic growth.

SC/10246

Security Council Urges Somalia’s Governing Institutions to Reach Agreement on Elections, as End of Transitional Period Approaches

Noting that the transitional period in Somalia would end in August, the Security Council today urged the East African nation’s Transitional Federal Institutions to reach agreement as soon as possible on the holding of elections for the President and the Speaker of Parliament. In a statement read out by Gérard Araud (France), its President for May, the Council expressed concern about the discord between the Institutions and its impact on the country’s political processes and security situation.
ENV/DEV/1209

Twenty Years after Rio Summit, World’s Ecosystems Still Threatened by Unsustainable Consumption, Production, Commission Told as High-Level Segment Opens

Twenty years after participants to the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro first recognized that unsustainable consumption and production patterns formed the biggest threat to the Earth’s capacity to satisfy human needs, that challenge continued to loom large and finding a framework to control it must be seen as a strategic priority, the Commission on Sustainable Development was told today, as it opened its three-day high-level segment.
DEV/2892

Rethinking Approach to Managing Vulnerabilities of Least Developed Countries Focus of Thematic Debate, at Istanbul Conference

ISTANBUL, 11 May — An expert panel at the Fourth United Nations Conference on the Least Developed Countries this afternoon considered the unique vulnerabilities of those countries and weighed strategies to help them rise above a raft of complex challenges, including geographical isolation, skyrocketing food prices, global warming, and lack of access to clean water.

DEV/2891

Indivisible Relationship between Good Governance, Durable Economic Growth in Least Developed Countries Subject of Thematic Debate in Istanbul

ISTANBUL, 11 May — The inexorable collapse of autocratic regimes in Africa, the stirring cries for free expression in the Middle East, and the demand for transparent political processes worldwide were vivid examples of why good governance practices should be encouraged –- and reinforced -- in all societies, experts said this morning during a high-level panel at the Fourth United Nations Conference on the Least Developed Countries.