Economic and Social Council

The Committee on Non-Governmental Organizations today continued the process of vetting the dozens of applications before it, recommending special consultative status with the Economic and Social Council for 26 organizations which had been deferred from previous sessions owing to questions posed by the 19-member body.

Decent and productive employment — coupled with safety nets for protecting the most vulnerable — should be at the core of efforts to eradicate poverty, speakers said today as the Commission for Social Development continued its general debate, while warning that global economic woes now threatened the very existence of such initiatives.

As the gap between rich and poor widened and one third of the global workforce remained either unemployed or mired in poverty, the international community must ramp up action to create jobs, ensure social protection and foster economic recovery, Deputy Secretary-General Asha-Rose Migiro told the Commission for Social Development as it opened its fiftieth session today.

The Committee on Non-Governmental Organizations continued its consideration of new applications for consultative status with the Economic and Social Council today, recommending 15 more non-governmental organizations (NGOs) for special consultative status and postponing consideration of 45, owing to probes ranging from the political aspects underpinning a humanitarian organization’s work to how another monitored cases of international law violations and war crimes.

The Committee on Non-Governmental Organizations today continued its careful scrutiny of applicants seeking consultative status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council, adding 37 new organizations to the more than 3,500 NGOs admitted since the Committee’s launch in 1946, while postponing consideration of 43 new applications pending responses to questions posed by Committee members.

Poverty eradication, full and productive employment and socially inclusive policies will take centre stage at the fiftieth session of the Commission for Social Development when it meets at United Nations Headquarters in New York from 1 to 10 February.

Opening its regular session for 2012, the Committee on Non-Governmental Organizations, which is responsible for vetting applications seeking consultative status with the Economic and Social Council, today recommended special consultative status for 47 organizations, all but three of which were based in countries in the global South.

As the United Nations embarked on an important year of milestone events, Secretary-General Ban-Ki-moon said today that the work of the Economic and Social Council — the central forum for discussing and coordinating action on such issues as sustainable development, disaster risk reduction, and economic growth — would be vital in realizing his vision of global “solidarity for an era of austerity and uncertainty”.

Resuming its 2011 substantive session, the Economic and Social Council today adopted two draft texts, including one on small island developing States, and filled vacancies on seven subsidiary bodies, including the World Food Programme (WFP) and the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN-Women).

The United Nations Postal Administration issued today a series of eight stamps to commemorate the International Year of Forests, illustrating the important role trees and forests play in people’s lives.