Meetings Coverage

The Secretary-General of the upcoming Fourth United Nations Conference on the Least Developed Countries today praised those nations for showing “their ownership and leadership” in submitting a comprehensive, ambitious and forward-looking draft programme of action to be adopted at the May event.

Amid widespread concern that more of the world’s poorest nations had not graduated to the next stage of socio-economic development in the last 10 years, officials from developing countries pressed today for the fulfilment of development assistance pledges, reform of trade policies and the transfer of technology, while urging the United Nations to help devise specially tailored strategies to help ease the transition to prosperity.

The upcoming Fourth United Nations Conference on the Least Developed Countries, which would determine the development paradigm for years to come, must come up with concrete ways to achieve sustainable economic prosperity in those 48 nations and improve the lot of their millions of poor people, the Secretary-General of the Conference said at the opening session of its Intergovernmental Preparatory Meeting.

The Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) today wrapped up the main part of a sixty-fifth session that aimed to boost the Organization’s efficiency by overhauling how tens of thousands of staff around the globe are hired, trained and paid, while continuing to modernize its outdated information and communications technology system.

Wrapping up the main part of the sixty-fifth session, General Assembly President Joseph Deiss (Switzerland) hailed the “constructive and cooperative spirit” that had prevailed over three months of critical, and at times challenging, deliberations on a range of issues, from poverty eradication and human rights to sustainable development and disarmament.

Afghanistan’s transition to responsibility for its own security, governance and development, put into motion this year, would result in a realignment of aid but not the country’s abandonment, the Secretary-General’s Special Representative for that country said today.

The Security Council decided this morning to establish the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals to finish the remaining tasks of the Tribunals for Rwanda and the Former Yugoslavia, and maintain their respective legacies.

The Security Council today renewed the mandate of the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF), which has supervised the ceasefire between Israel and Syria since 1974, for the next sixth months, until 30 June 2011. Unanimously adopting resolution 1965 (2010), the Council also called for implementation of its resolution 338 (1973), which required immediate negotiations between the parties, aimed at establishing a just and lasting peace in the Middle East.

Expressing serious concern at continued fighting and condemning terrorist attacks by armed groups and foreign fighters, the Security Council today extended its authorization of the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) until 30 September 2011. Unanimously adopting resolution 1964 (2010) under Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter, the Council requested the African Union to increase AMISOM’s force strength from the current mandated level of 8,000 troops to a maximum of 12,000.