Economic and Social Council

The economic slowdown had weakened the world’s social safety net, but delegates of countries from Nicaragua to Kenya, speaking during the Commission for Social Development’s forty-eighth session today, reported some progress in improving the socio-economic situation of their most vulnerable and marginalized citizens thanks to a range of social integration programmes.

During a high-level panel on social integration that opened the session’s second day, delegations in the Commission on Social Development today wrestled with finding reasons why many social integration policies were inadequate, with many agreeing they had been developed on a piecemeal basis, and fashioned into solutions seldom accompanied by implementation and evaluation frameworks.

During its 2010 regular session, which began on 25 January and ended today, the Committee on Non-governmental Organizations (NGOs) considered applications submitted by 246 entities, recommending that the Economic and Social Council grant consultative status to 76 of them, while closing 19 applications.

Amid a climate of economic and financial insecurity, environmental peril and persistent social exclusion, the United Nations Commission for Social Development would endeavour during its current session to adopt resolutions that would help chart the future of social development policies within the framework of greater participation and accountability, that body’s Chairman said today.

Since world leaders met in Copenhagen in 1995 to adopt a declaration and action programme for social change, encouraging progress had been made in promoting the inclusion of socially marginalized groups, but “daunting” challenges remained in reaching broader social development goals, Sha Zukang, United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs, said today, as the Commission for Social Development opened its forty-eighth session.

The Committee on Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) today recommended 13 entities for consultative status with the Economic and Social Council, postponed its consideration of 31 applications and recommended a two-year suspension for another, Interfaith International.

The Commission for Social Development is to address social integration when it holds its forty-eighth session at United Nations Headquarters from 3 to 12 February.

The Committee on Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) today recommended one entity for consultative status with the Economic and Social Council, postponed its consideration of 25 applications and closed nine without prejudice.

The Committee on Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) today recommended eight entities for consultative status with the Economic and Social Council and the reclassification of another, and postponed consideration of 30 applications.

A one-day meeting will be held at United Nations Headquarters in New York on Monday, 1 February, to accelerate the pace by which decisions on sustainable development are turned into action.