Economic and Social Council

While mortality had declined and life expectancy had risen across the world -- trends underpinned by a shift in the “disease burden” from communicable to non-communicable diseases -- the HIV pandemic had halted progress and, in some regions, reversed it, health experts told the Commission on Population and Development today, as it continued its general debate.

People around the world were dying because their needs went unmet by health systems that were fragmented, broken and struggling, the Commission on Population and Development heard today as it continued its general debate on national experiences related to health, morbidity, mortality and development.

While life expectancy had risen in all regions over the past 50 years -- one major achievement of the last century -- health improvements and medical advances were not reaching huge swaths of the developing world, mandating the global community to work harder to ensure that people did not die of preventable disease, the Commission on Population and Development heard today as it opened its forty-third session under the theme of “Health, morbidity, mortality and development”.

As mortality declined in most countries during the twentieth century, life expectancy has risen in all world regions, the United Nations reports, ahead of an intergovernmental meeting on population and development next week in New York. From 47 years in 1950-1955, global life expectancy increased sharply to 68 years in 2005-2010.

The President of the Economic and Social Council today welcomed the “open and constructive” discussions held during the 54-member body’s special high-level meeting with the Bretton Woods institutions, and expressed hope that the spirit of engagement over the past two days marked the beginning of closer relations between the United Nations and the major international financial institutions.

Gathered at Headquarters in New York for their annual meeting with the Economic and Social Council, top officials from the major international financial institutions today highlighted the new possibilities provided by the financial and economic crisis to intensify support for developing countries and mobilize action and resources within the United Nations-backed Financing for Development process to achieve the Millennium Development Goals by 2015.

Following are UN Deputy Secretary-General Asha-Rose Migiro’s remarks to the Special High-Level Meeting of the Economic and Social Council with the Bretton Woods institutions, World Trade Organization and United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, in New York today, 18 March:

The Economic and Social Council’s focus in 2010 would be on providing substantive input for the September summit on the Millennium Development Goals, the organ’s President said today.

Experts will try to figure out how to handle growing amounts of solid waste, a problem compounded by ever-rising urbanization, population growth and global rates of consumption, at a meeting in Tokyo, Japan, on 18 and 19 March.

The well-integrated system of buses, subways and trains in Seoul, capital of the Republic of Korea, will highlight the health, economic and quality-of-life benefits of a sustainable public transport system during a meeting in that city on 16‑17 March.