Meetings Coverage

As Haiti prepared for its second round of presidential elections on 20 March, United Nations officials told the Economic and Social Council today that political stability in the Caribbean nation could only be achieved by Haitians themselves, urging that utmost care be taken to ensure the appointment of a responsible Government to lead the people through the next stage of recovery and reconstruction.

Social policy could only be transformative and successful in reducing poverty and putting a nation on a path to sustainable, equitable growth if it was integral to policies that addressed broader socioeconomic and political goals, Sarah Cook, Director of the UNRISD, told the Commission on Social Development today as it continued its forty-ninth session.

There was a pressing need to launch the internationally-mandated dialogue between authorities in Kosovo and Serbia, long delayed by political turmoil in Kosovo, and to work towards viable cooperation on peace and security as well as other critical issues facing the region, the Secretary-General’s Special Representative told the Security Council today.

The Security Council today authorized a three-month extension of the temporary redeployment of infantry and aviation units from the United Nations Mission in Liberia to the Organization’s Operation in Côte d’Ivoire.

Setting out the priorities for the 2011 term in the Chair of the OSCE, the Lithuanian Foreign Minister stressed today the values that the regional body held in common with the United Nations and called for greater cooperation to expand peace, advance human rights, generate sustainable development and build a safer world.

Acting on a number of organizational issues, the Economic and Social Council today decided that its meeting with the Bretton Woods institutions, World Trade Organization and the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) would be held at Headquarters on 10 and 11 March. Approving the provisional agenda for its 2011 substantive session, as orally corrected, the Council also adopted working arrangements for that four-week session.

As Member States discussed ways to envelop the pressing needs of an ageing population that could reach 1.6 billion in the developing world by 2050, the Commission on Social Development today heard three experts lay out ways in which social protection measures could shield individuals and their families from the most severe economic shocks emanating from a financial crisis.

Warning of the social costs to economic growth, such as social unrest and protests, and exclusion of the most vulnerable segments of society, the United Nations Independent Expert on Human Rights and Extreme Poverty told the Commission for Social Development today that the only way to ensure that growth benefited the poor was to include in it a human rights component.

The Security Council stressed today the need to take into account the economic and social dimensions of conflict, in addition to the political factors of maintaining international peace and security, as more than 60 speakers, including Government ministers, the Secretary-General and a World Bank official, took part in a day-long debate.

As Governments around the world mapped out strategies that would truly help reduce the ranks of hundreds of millions of people living in abject poverty, the United Nations Commission for Social Development today heard four anti-poverty experts offer ways to keep the ranks of people living without adequate food, clothing and shelter from swelling.