Plenary

As the General Assembly gathered for the second day of its high-level review of progress towards the Millennium Development Goals, presidents, ministers and other officials urged that concrete measures be devised to assist those countries that had fallen behind in the fight against extreme deprivation.

With the continuing loss of biodiversity representing a major obstacle to attainment of the Millennium Development Goals, the United Nations General Assembly will consider strategies for speeding up the implementation of measures to protect and conserve species and ecosystems around the world.

The progress made in addressing the vulnerabilities of small island developing States and achieving sustainable development through the implementation of the Mauritius Strategy will be reviewed by the 192-member United Nations General Assembly on 24 and 25 September.

Despite obstacles, scepticism and a fast-approaching 2015 deadline, the Millennium Development Goals could be achieved if the global community stayed true to the promise made a decade ago to end the dehumanizing conditions of poverty by making smart investments in infrastructure, opening export markets and generally rethinking conventional wisdom, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told world leaders today as he opened the General Assembly’s high-level meeting to take stock of progress.

Acting on the recommendations of its General Committee, the United Nations General Assembly this morning adopted the work programme and agenda for its sixty-fifth session, which contains nearly 124 items.

With countries gradually recovering from the global economic and financial crisis, the General Assembly had the duty to deliver results in its pursuit of achieving the Millennium Development Goals, reforming United Nations power structures and promoting sustainable development, incoming Assembly President Joseph Deiss stressed today as he opened the 192-member body’s sixty-fifth session.

Encouraged by political leaders’ strong support for the United Nations as the centre stage of dialogue and collective action to address the world’s multiple challenges, outgoing General Assembly President Ali Abdussalam Treki today implored the 192-member body, as the only global organ with a truly global agenda, to continue to innovate, build consensus and implement its resolutions to “stem the erosion of its authority”.

In a flurry of activity before the opening tomorrow of its sixty-fifth session, the General Assembly adopted three resolutions and two decisions today on issues related to the layout of its upcoming high-level meetings on the Millennium Development Goals, the Mauritius Strategy for the Sustainable Development of Small Island Developing States, and the International Year of Biodiversity, among others.

Acting on a request by Azerbaijan, the General Assembly decided today to defer to its sixty-fifth session consideration of a draft resolution on “observance of international law and international human rights law in the occupied territories of Azerbaijan”.

In one round of balloting today, the General Assembly elected Joan Donoghue of the United States as a member of the International Court of Justice, in an election run independently of, but concurrently with, the Security Council.