The COVID-19 pandemic has revealed the importance of science and technology for the well-being of global populations, and advances in these fields are necessary not only to recover better from the crisis, but also to address other global challenges, such as poverty, inequality and climate change, speakers said today as the Economic and Social Council opened a two-day forum on the subject.
The United Nations is best positioned to rally a broad range of stakeholders behind efforts to address such global challenges as conflict, underdevelopment, climate change, and most recently the coronavirus pandemic, speakers told the Partnership Forum today, stressing that such an inclusive alliance can be a “game changer” for sustainable recovery from the COVID-19 crisis.
The international community must join forces to finally end the offshore tax havens and policy loopholes that are draining billions of dollars needed to advance sustainable development and recover from the COVID-19 crisis, experts stressed today as the Economic and Social Council held its annual Special Meeting on International Cooperation in Tax Matters.
With the number of new COVID-19 cases around the world nearly doubling over the past two months — approaching the highest infection rate observed during the pandemic — the unequal distribution of vaccines is not only a moral outrage, but economically and epidemiologically self-defeating, the head of the United Nations health agency told a special ministerial meeting of the Economic and Social Council today.
Ministers and other high-level officials concluded the 2021 Forum on Financing for Development Follow-up today, reaffirming their commitment to strengthen multilateral cooperation and solidarity to combat COVID-19’s frustration of global implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, tenuous even before the unprecedented crisis exacerbated existing ones.
Poor countries are facing severe setbacks on their development paths, encumbered by ballooning debts, high risks of default and limited ability to inject desperately needed liquidity into their markets, economic experts told the Forum on Financing for Development today, as they offered ideas for ensuring a more equitable global recovery from the pandemic during three interactive panels.
The Economic and Social Council continued its annual Forum on Financing for Development today, holding two interactive panel discussions, during which speakers proposed potential solutions to COVID-19’s devastating impact on infrastructure investment — lagging even before the novel coronavirus struck — and sought ways to avoid a global post-pandemic recovery that leaves some behind.
The Economic and Social Council opened its annual financing for development forum today amid warnings that, with more than 3 million lives lost to COVID-19 and infections still on the rise, Governments must urgently heed the lessons learned thus far if they are to avoid a lengthy global recession.
Following are UN Secretary-General António Guterres’ remarks to the opening of the 2021 Economic and Social Council Forum on Financing for Development, in New York today:
With more than 19,000 participants joining virtually over its two-day session, the 2021 Economic and Social Council Youth Forum concluded today as the largest and most diverse gathering of young people in the United Nations history, amid calls to retain useful pandemic-era tools while addressing the structural inequities that have long held youth back from achieving their full potential.
