Despite gains made since the 1995 adoption of the Beijing Platform for Action for Women, a renewed commitment to eliminating inequality was vital to reaching sustainable development goals, senior Government and United Nations officials said as they opened today’s General Assembly thematic debate aimed at inspiring women’s advancement in the run-up to agreement on a post-2015 agenda.
General Assembly
Facing unparalleled global pressures, with a rising Ebola virus death toll, rampant extremism that was escalating “terror to a new era and a new level” and unwilling refugees fleeing elevated sea-levels, the international community must tackle those formidable challenges with a sense of resolve and resilience, General Assembly President Sam Kutesa (Uganda) said at the opening of the sixty-ninth session of the 193-nation organ.
The Bureau of the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People issued the following statement today:
Twenty six donors today announced contributions, or their intention to contribute, to the 2015 budget of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), as officials estimated that the chronically underfunded Agency would begin the year facing a $35 million deficit.
The United Nations Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People joined by United Cities and Local Governments, the Andalusian Fund of Municipalities for International Solidarity and the Junta of Andalusia will convene the International Conference of Local Governments and Civil Society Organizations in Support of Palestinian Rights, from 2 to 3 December, in Seville, Spain.
The Meeting will be convened by the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People, at the United Nations Headquarters in New York on 21 November.
The global fight against the Ebola virus so far had aborted a worst-case scenario of runaway increases in infections, but the disease was far from contained, delegates in the General Assembly heard today during an information briefing on the crisis.
The Bureau of the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People issued the following statement today:
Twenty-six countries pledged approximately $560 million during a Headquarters event, in support of United Nations development activities, which primarily covered 2015. The amount represents an increase of approximately $72 million in comparison to last year’s pledges.
Violence against society’s most vulnerable, in all its forms, needed to be uprooted and eradicated in order to pave a sure path towards sustainable development, the Third Committee (Social, Humanitarian and Cultural) heard today as it continued its debate on the rights of children, and concluded its consideration of the advancement of women.