In three interactive panel discussions today, the Economic and Social Council looked at how climate change challenges could be met through creating decent jobs, how dignity and prosperity could become the norm for working people, and how policies could translate sustained economic growth in Africa into “broad-based and job-rich outcomes” towards inclusive sustainable development.
The situation in the Middle East, protection of children in armed conflict and crises in Africa dominated the Council’s schedule, the Permanent Representative of France, President of the body for March, said in a monthly wrap-up meeting this afternoon.
With almost 200 million people in the 15 to 24 age group — a figure likely to double in the next three decades — Africa represented an opportunity as well as challenge, the President of Tanzania told the Economic and Social Council today as that body began its 2015 integration session on the theme “Achieving sustainable development through employment creation and decent work for all”.
Unless well-targeted humanitarian assistance reached those fleeing Boko Haram’s increasingly brutal attacks, more than 3 million people in northern Nigeria would be unable to meet basic food needs in the coming months and millions more would be affected, top United Nations officials said, briefing the Security Council on threats to international peace and security caused by terrorist acts.
Unanimously adopting two separate resolutions this evening on Libya, the Security Council, in the first, called for an immediate and unconditional ceasefire and extended the United Nations Support Mission there (UNSMIL) until 15 September, and in the second, adjusted the arms embargo on the country in light of the terrorist threat there.
From Syria and Iraq to Libya and Yemen, the cultural and religious fabric in the Middle East, intricately woven over centuries, was being torn apart by terrorists intent on eliminating the very diversity that had given rise to many of the world’s great civilizations, the Security Council heard today as speakers implored it to help end the fighting and urgently protect the region’s minorities.
Taking action without a vote, the Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) today approved seven draft texts relating to, among other things, oversight, accountability, procurement, and nine items from the programme budget for the current biennium, as it concluded the first part of its resumed sixty-ninth session.
The Security Council today extended until 31 March 2016 the mandate of the United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUSCO), including its intervention brigade.
It might already be too late to realize the paradigm of “two States for two peoples”, the Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process told the Security Council today, of the view that during his tenure he had been part of a peace process in which “a can is kicked down an endless road”.
The Security Council today authorized an increase of 750 military personnel, 280 police personnel and 20 corrections officers for the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in the Central African Republic (MINUSCA), over the levels authorized by resolution 2149 (2014).
