Plenary

As the General Assembly today concluded its consideration of the Peacebuilding Commission’s annual progress report, delegates praised the document’s analytical approach and urged the Commission, as well as the Peacebuilding Fund, to reach out to development banks, regional organizations and other partners to mobilize resources.

Peacebuilding was not a linear, progressive process, but a multifaceted one that required stepping into new partnerships and articulating new strategies, as mending societies in the aftermath of armed conflict remained a fragile undertaking, seven years after the foundations for United Nations peacebuilding were laid, delegates in the General Assembly heard today.

Eliminating human trafficking, child labour, sex slavery and other modern forms of slavery, as well as racial discrimination and related intolerance would be the best way to honour the death and suffering imposed on victims of the brutal transatlantic slave trade, diplomats and senior United Nations officials said at a Headquarters commemoration today.

Greater international cooperation was critical for the security of fragile and finite global water resources, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said today during a high-level event in observance of World Water Day and the beginning of the International Year of Water Cooperation. “We cannot prosper without clean, plentiful freshwater,” Mr. Ban told the General Assembly’s High-level Interactive Dialogue on Water Cooperation.

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and General Assembly President Vuk Jeremić joined delegates from around the world today in hailing the late Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez Frías for his strong leadership, commitment to the Millennium Development Goals and advocacy on behalf of the world’s poorest.

The General Assembly today appointed Vinay Kumar (India) to the Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions, effective immediately, for a term ending on 31 December.

The General Assembly today decided that a special session on the follow-up to the Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population and Development will be held on 22 September 2014 in New York “in the most efficient and cost-effective manner”.

Launching today the 2013 International Year of Quinoa, senior United Nations officials joined South American leaders to praise the nutritional value of the ancient “superfood”, which Bolivian President Evo Morales hailed as an “ancestral gift from the Andes to the world” — a low-cost response to global hunger and the starting point for a more equitable international economic system, especially the food trade.

The General Assembly today adopted, by consensus, a decision establishing the composition of the 30-country Open Working Group on Sustainable Development Goals, as called for by the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (“Rio+20”) outcome document, entitled “The Future We Want”.

The United Nations General Assembly today established the Open Working Group tasked with advancing action towards implementing a Rio+20 recommendation to develop a set of sustainable development goals.