A larger role for the State was needed to ensure that the high growth rates of African economies translated into more jobs and less poverty for its citizens, two United Nations officials said today as they launched the 2011 Economic Report on Africa.
In progress at UNHQ
Press Conference
Governments, multinational corporations and the banks supporting them financially must respect international environmental standards in their extraction of natural resources or construction of giant infrastructure projects in biologically diverse lands, members of the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues said at a Headquarters press conference today.
The 10-year Programme of Action adopted at the close of the Fourth United Nations Conference on the Least Development Countries gave new momentum to global efforts to improve the lot of the world’s most vulnerable, impoverished nations, Gyan Chandra Acharya, (Nepal), Chair of the Group of Least Developed Countries, said at a Headquarters press conference today.
The tenth session of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues would give delegates an opportunity to review more than 200 recommendations made over the last decade in discussing such issues as the role of indigenous peoples in the sustainable development debate, Forum Chair Mirna Cunningham said at a Headquarters press conference today.
Financial indicators for 2011 were encouraging, with 29 Member States having paid in full all assessments due, said Angela Kane, Under-Secretary-General for Management, at a headquarters press conference today. Briefing correspondents on the United Nations financial situation and joined by Assistant Secretary-General and United Nations Controller Jun Yamazaki, Ms. Kane said that unpaid assessed contributions totalled $3.2 billion.
Officials of the United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat) released a report at Headquarters today which identifies promising ways in which the world can mitigate and adapt to climate change while following more sustainable, resilient patterns of urban development.
At a press conference to launch a United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) report entitled "Decoupling Natural Resource Use and Environmental Impacts from Economic Growth", Programme Executive Director Achim Steiner said that, despite the "dramatic numbers" contained in the report, the picture painted for the future need not be bleak.
A panel of environmental experts laid out ways to curb the consumption patterns of individuals and businesses in order to preserve the world’s precious resources, at a press conference held today at United Nations Headquarters.
Governments were seriously examining ways to avoid a “regulatory void” in the event that the Kyoto Protocol was allowed to lapse without a new replacement mechanism in place by December 2012, Christiana Figueres, Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change said at a Headquarters press conference today.
There was firm evidence that both pro-Government elements and opposition forces in Libya were responsible for the recruitment of child soldiers, a war crime, Special Representative Radhika Coomaraswamy said at Headquarters today as she released the Secretary-General’s annual report on children and armed conflict.