Meetings Coverage

Closing its fortieth session today, the Committee on Information approved two draft resolutions, the second of which emphasized the need to promote multilingualism, bridge the digital divide and maintain the use of traditional media.

The United Nations senior management official today laid out the Organization’s semi-annual financial situation to Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) members gathered for the second part of a resumed seventy-second session focusing on the multibillion dollar financing needs of more than a dozen active peacekeeping missions.

Hammering out details of the implementation of a global strategic plan for forests, delegates exchanged views on how best to communicate key messages as the United Nations Forum on Forests convened the penultimate meeting of its thirteenth session.

SAINT GEORGE'S, Grenada, 10 May — Noting that “decolonization is still incomplete”, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres told the 2018 Pacific Regional Seminar on Decolonization today that ensuring the Non-Self-Governing Territories were able to address a host of economic, social and environmental challenges would be the key to moving forward in their decolonization efforts.

The ongoing reconfiguration of the African Union-United Nations Hybrid Operation in Darfur (UNAMID) was having no adverse impact on security, although efforts towards a political solution to the conflict remained stalled, the Head of that Mission told the Security Council this morning as he presented the Secretary-General’s latest 60-day report on the situation there.

The General Assembly adopted a resolution by which it decided to establish a working group to identify gaps in international environmental law, and possibly convene a conference for the creation of a new international instrument.

Despite significant progress in the International Criminal Court’s investigation of crimes committed within Libya in 2011 — including its first visit to the country in five years, in March 2018 — the cause of criminal justice would be undermined unless accused perpetrators were handed over, the Chief Prosecutor told the Security Council today.

SAINT GEORGE'S, Grenada, 9 May — As the Pacific Regional Seminar on Decolonization opened today, participants called for renewed focus on supporting the Non-Self-Governing Territories to achieve the objectives laid out in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, bearing in mind the need for greater collaboration in addressing the unique challenges faced by each Territory.

On the seventieth anniversary of United Nations peacekeeping, the commanders of three of the Organization’s missions in Africa briefed the Security Council this afternoon on the increasingly complex challenges faced by Blue Helmets, emphasizing that their core role was to establish secure environments that would enable political solutions to take root.

Fine-tuning assessment tools and examining a set of global indicators to effectively measure the health of the world’s woodlands, delegates today shared suggestions on ways to streamline reporting with a view to making concrete progress on the ground, as the United Nations Forum on Forests continued its thirteenth session.