To ease the Organization’s chronic cash crisis, the United Nations senior management official today presented the Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) with a set of targeted measures that go beyond reduced services, hiring freezes and other spending restrictions.
A ministerial-level discussion, organized by the Commission on the Status of Women, convened today to explore national strategies for empowering women and girls in Government, the economy and the workplace. Speakers shared challenges, best practices and strategies to advance the Beijing Platform for Action — a global agenda adopted 30 years ago to promote gender equality and uphold women’s rights.
Amid major challenges to international development cooperation, dwindling global solidarity and shrinking development assistance, a paradigm shift is urgently needed, speakers at the Economic and Social Council’s 2025 Development Cooperation Forum stressed as they opened its annual session in New York today.
The European Union remains the United Nations’ reliable partner of choice and a cornerstone of its financing, even amid shifting geopolitical dynamics, the Security Council heard today during its annual briefing on cooperation between the two entities.
The Commission on the Status of Women continued its sixty-ninth session today holding a ministerial roundtable discussion, with speakers sharing best practices and challenges in regard to their national strategies aiming to achieve gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls.
The Special Committee on Decolonization met today to approve the guidelines and rules of procedure for its 2025 Pacific Regional Seminar, which will be held in Dili, Timor-Leste, from 21 to 23 May.
The Commission on the Status of Women opened its sixty-ninth session today in the General Assembly, marking 30 years since the landmark 1995 Beijing Conference on Women, which pledged to achieve gender equality and uphold women’s rights. Speakers emphasized the critical work still needed to advance these goals “in the face of immense obstacles”.
Noting the approach of the International Day to Combat Islamophobia on 15 March, Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) delegates today began reviewing the proposed 2025 budget of $870,000 to support the mandate of a Special Envoy to Combat Islamophobia, including the creation of professional posts within the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations (UNAOC) to assist its High Representative, who is recommended to double as the Special Envoy.
Pointing to growing frustration over the lack of progress in political engagement with Afghanistan’s de facto authorities — compounded by cuts to humanitarian-aid funding that are placing additional pressure on the Afghan people — the top UN official there told the Security Council today that the Taliban must clearly demonstrate their commitment to Afghanistan’s international reintegration.
The new political reality in Syria presents an opportunity to obtain long-overdue clarifications on the Syrian chemical weapons programme, rid the country of all such weapons and ensure long-term compliance with the Chemical Weapons Convention, a senior United Nations official told the Security Council today.
