Economic and Social Council

The Committee on Non-Governmental Organizations today recommended 43 entities for consultative status with the Economic and Social Council, and postponed consideration of 18 applications, as it resumed its 2011 session.

More than 1,300 delegates are expected to attend the tenth session of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues at Headquarters in New York from 16 to 27 May. This year’s Permanent Forum will be especially significant, since it is a review year, which will focus on the implementation of Forum recommendations on economic and social development, the environment and free, prior and informed consent.

A new partnership to assist local communities in managing ever-increasing amounts of waste — and the growing presence of chemicals and hazardous and toxic elements in the general waste stream — was launched today at the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development.

The Commission on Sustainable Development ended its nineteenth session early Saturday morning, unable to agree on policy decisions on practical measures to advance chemical and waste management, transform transport and mining practices, and establish a long-awaited 10-Year Framework of Programmes for sustainable consumption and production patterns, which was first called for at the 2002 World Summit for Sustainable Development.

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.

Just one day shy of its anticipated deadline, the Commission on Sustainable Development today heard from experts in four intensive round table meetings, and held subsequent discussions aimed at advancing the adoption tomorrow of a strong outcome document for the Commission’s 2011 policy session.

Twenty years after participants to the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro first recognized that unsustainable consumption and production patterns formed the biggest threat to the Earth’s capacity to satisfy human needs, that challenge continued to loom large and finding a framework to control it must be seen as a strategic priority, the Commission on Sustainable Development was told today, as it opened its three-day high-level segment.

The Commission on Sustainable Development had reached a critical moment in its negotiations to develop concrete policy recommendations, delegates were told today as the body discussed progress made by its working groups more than halfway through its annual two-week session.

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.

Meeting briefly at the end of the first week of its annual two-week session, the Commission on Sustainable Development was urged by its Chair to do its utmost — and perhaps go even further — to reach the goal of shaping critical global policies on transport; chemicals; waste management; mining; and a 10-Year Framework of Programmes on Sustainable Consumption and Production Patterns.