Plenary

Provision of a range of financial services to the poor - from loans and savings to payments and transfer services – played a significant role in the fight against poverty, and more efforts were needed to ensure that coverage reached the most marginalized, who often lived farthest from banks and markets, General Assembly delegates said today as they measured progress in the follow-up to the 2005 International Year of Microfinance.

In three rounds of voting, the General Assembly today elected Colombia, Germany, India, Portugal and South Africa as five non-permanent members of the Security Council for two-year terms beginning on 1 January 2011.

Pressed to conclude their work over the next two years, top officials from the United Nations war crimes Tribunals investigating atrocities committed during the 1994 Rwandan genocide and the Balkan wars of the 1990s, today appealed to the General Assembly for more time, resources and, especially, incentives to help attract and hold onto qualified staff.

While the United Nations had seen breakthroughs in its efforts to serve the poor and empower women, the Organization must harness its convening power to achieve a binding climate agreement, ensure respect for basic rights of self-determination and, above all, reform its key structures to reflect current geopolitical realities, General Assembly delegates stressed today as they considered the Secretary-General’s report on the work of the Organization.

The question of the United Nations being able to effectively tackle entrenched global ills — from poverty and terrorism to conflict prevention and pandemic disease — hinged on whether the 192-member body would be brave enough to move beyond deadlock and oft-repeated positions of principle to truly defend its role as the premier centre for global decision-making, the President of the General Assembly stressed today at the end of that body’s week-long general debate.

Conflict resolution and peacebuilding in places as diverse as the Middle East, Kashmir, Cyprus and the Balkans emerged as major themes as the General Assembly continued its annual general debate today, alongside calls for reforms to make the Security Council more representative of the United Nations membership, 65 years after the founding of the Organization.

Amid their efforts to mitigate and adapt to the adverse, often destructive effects of climate change, individual countries were unable tackle the vast, far-reaching challenges alone, making it vital for the international community to develop a coordinated approach to the issue, leaders of small island developing States stressed today as the General Assembly continued its annual general debate.

Concerned about the sustainable development challenges facing small island developing States, and their uneven progress towards realizing the Millennium Development Goals, the General Assembly today urged international financial institutions to give them adequate access to concessionary financing for investment in sustainable development, and development partners to pay due attention to their unique vulnerabilities so they could recover economically.

Heads of State and Government called for the building of global solidarity through the United Nations to help resolve local conflicts as well as international crises, as the annual high-level debate at the General Assembly continued with its third day today.

The United Nations was committed to supporting small island developing States, at the international policy level and on the ground, through its agencies and technical cooperation projects, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told the General Assembly today.