Conflicts, inequality, volatile financial markets, corruption, climate change challenges and health‑related threats were among the obstacles stymying progress on achieving sustainable development for all, delegates warned at the opening of the fifty‑sixth session of the Commission for Social Development, with many calling for sharpening the focus of national and global efforts to reach vulnerable groups.
Concluding its fifty-fifth session today, the Commission for Social Development approved without a vote three draft resolutions for adoption by the Economic and Social Council that addressed issues of African development, youth and the rights of persons with disabilities.
The Commission for Social Development heard the views of nearly 20 non-governmental organizations on youth, the elderly, women and girls, persons with disabilities and family rights today as it concluded its general discussion on strategies for eradicating poverty to achieve sustainable development for all.
While the Copenhagen Declaration had helped countries make great strides in improving living conditions, the international community must now align its work with modern reality, speakers told the Commission on Social Development today, with some calling on the 40-member body to revise its work programme and end duplication.
Delegates spotlighted the obligation of Governments and international organizations to promote and protect the inalienable rights of the world’s 1 billion persons with disabilities today, as the Commission for Social Development entered the third day of its fifty-fifth annual session.
The fifty-fifth session of the Commission for Social Development continued today, with participants casting a spotlight on challenges faced by young people, and the perils of growing inequality, as Governments strove to put the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development into action.
The Commission on Social Development — whose past work had been critical to the evolution of many principles underpinning the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development — now had a critical role to play in that framework’s implementation, stressed delegates as they opened the Commission’s fifty-fifth annual session today.
The Commission for Social Development concluded its fifty-fourth session today, approving three draft resolutions for adoption by the Economic and Social Council with one on Africa’s development, traditionally endorsed by consensus, requiring a rare vote to address the United States’ concerns over language around trade issues, and more generally, “the right to development”.
Economies must be put at the service of people, through effective integrated social policies, the United Nations Secretary-General told the Commission for Social Development today, stressing that, in a world where inequality was still too high and too few economies had attained sustainable growth, the body’s policy guidance would be critical to global efforts to end poverty by 2030.
There was now a common understanding that social policies inclusive of persons with disabilities were a “sound” investment in society and that their exclusion from decisions came with economic costs that countries could no longer ignore, the Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities told the Commission for Social Development today, outlining ways to ensure the new 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development built on historic gains in their recognition.