While “sprinting towards the last mile” in achieving targets set out under the Millennium Development Goals, the United Nations must also prepare for the “marathon” challenge of improving life for the most vulnerable in the post-2015 era, said the heads of the Organization’s Funds and Programmes in a dialogue with the Economic and Social Council today.
While huge efforts had been made to adapt the development system to evolving country needs, the United Nations must use its credibility, impartiality and access to specialized knowledge more effectively in order to deliver fit-for-purpose results over the next 15 years, the Economic and Social Council heard today, as it opened its 2015 operational activities segment.
Fuelled by the voices, concerns and demands of young people, the Youth Forum wrapped up its two-day meeting today, hearing from more than 50 speakers who delved into critical issues such as gender equality and African development, as well as global and regional efforts to include and involve history’s largest youth population in building a sustainable future.
The world’s 1.8 billion young people – 90 per cent of whom lived in developing countries — were a source of innovation, hope and resilience whose power to transform economies must be unleashed in efforts to shape the post-2015 development agenda, senior United Nations officials and youth representatives alike told the Economic and Social Council’s fourth annual Youth Forum today.
Stressing that 2015 provided a “historic” opportunity to advance the sustainable development agenda, United Nations and Government officials shed light today on strategies to make the Organization’s development system more nimble and effective in supporting priorities in countries worldwide over the next 15 years.
The Economic and Social Council this morning elected Mohamed Khaled Khiari (Tunisia) Vice-President of the 54-member body.
Experts, United Nations officials and representatives of Member States exchanged views over two sessions today on the longer-term positioning of the Organization’s development system taking into account the post-2015 development agenda, at a dialogue organized by the Economic and Social Council.
The collapse of the international financial system in 2008 was partly attributable to the conflicts of interest implicit in agency-client relationships and the lack of transparency in the industry, experts said today as the Economic and Social Council held a panel exploring how countries, regional organizations and United Nations agencies could work together towards a fair, transparent and more comprehensive international credit ratings system that supported sustainable development.
The deadly Ebola outbreak could inflict $3-4 billion in losses on the Sub-Saharan African economy and had already begun to erode economic growth in the hardest-hit countries, the Economic and Social Council heard today as it considered how the epidemic could endanger sustainable development.
The Economic and Social Council, in one of five texts adopted today, called on the Haitian Government to fully operationalize the External Aid Coordination Framework and its mechanisms in keeping with the road map adopted in 2014.
