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.
In progress at UNHQ
Press Conference
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.
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.
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.
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.
Only three months after being opened for signature, the Nagoya Protocol to the Convention on Biological Diversity had more than a quarter of the signatories needed to move towards ratification, officials said at a Headquarters press conference today.
Three days before the high-level segment of the nineteenth Commission on Sustainable Development, Under-Secretary-General Sha Zukang and Chairman László Borbély highlighted the session’s crucial focus on the need for more efficient use of natural resources during a Headquarters press conference today. “We are focusing on concrete ways to use resources more efficiently,” said Mr. Sha, Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs.