Economic and Social Council

The Economic and Social Council concluded the first part of its 2013 organizational session today, adopting seven draft decisions that detailed much of its agenda for the year, and outlined the arrangements for the body’s substantive session, set to open on 1 July, at the United Nations Office at Geneva.

Calling strongly for concrete policy actions and targeted investments to enhance food security and scale up nutrition, top officials from the Economic and Social Council and the General Assembly’s Second Committee (Economic and Financial) stressed today that “hope, focus, pragmatism and determination” — bolstered by deeper cooperation — were crucial to ending hunger, a global challenge that was “eminently solvable”.

Meeting briefly today, the Commission for Social Development took up a number of issues that would set the tone for its upcoming work and, more broadly, allow it to engage in more relevant ways within the United Nations system, especially the Economic and Social Council, whose principal role in the follow-up to major United Nations meetings was elevated by the landmark 2012 Rio+20 Conference on Sustainable Development.

Integrating the three pillars of sustainable development into United Nations development efforts would underpin the work of the Economic and Social Council in 2013, the organ’s newly elected President said at Headquarters today.

With an estimated 75 million young people out of work around the world — nearly one in four in some parts — rapid action was needed to stimulate job creation, give young people and other excluded groups a voice in decision-making and institute schemes for social protection floors, the Commission for Social Development heard today as it continued its fifty-first session.

Seizing the “strategic and unique” opportunities before the Economic and Social Council could make 2013 an “historic year” for the body, its President said today as he called on delegations to work together on a results-oriented agenda that would both strengthen the Council and enhance its contribution to United Nations-backed sustainable development processes now getting under way.

The High-level General Assembly Meeting on Disability and Development — to be held in September — would provide an historic opportunity to chart the way towards a truly inclusive development agenda while empowering the world’s 1 billion disabled persons as both agents and beneficiaries of change, the Commission for Social Development heard today as it moved into week two of its fifty-first session.

Wrapping up the first part of its regular session, the Committee on Non-Governmental Organizations today adopted its draft 2013 report, which contains the list of 159 NGOs recommended for consultative status with the Economic and Social Council.

Faced with expanding inequality and widening gaps between rich and poor, world leaders poised to devise a new development agenda for the post-2015 era should embark upon a “new discussion” about the often-neglected social dimension of sustainable development, speakers urged today as the Commission for Social Development continued its fifty-first session.

Governments must promote policies aimed at providing decent jobs as protection against poverty — which a delegate described as “the source of all ills”, including poor health and stalled economic growth — the Commission for Social Development heard today as it explored linkages between empowerment and poverty eradication.