Meetings Coverage

The Committee on Non-Governmental Organizations today continued the process of vetting the dozens of applications before it, recommending special consultative status with the Economic and Social Council for 26 organizations which had been deferred from previous sessions owing to questions posed by the 19-member body.

Decent and productive employment — coupled with safety nets for protecting the most vulnerable — should be at the core of efforts to eradicate poverty, speakers said today as the Commission for Social Development continued its general debate, while warning that global economic woes now threatened the very existence of such initiatives.

As the gap between rich and poor widened and one third of the global workforce remained either unemployed or mired in poverty, the international community must ramp up action to create jobs, ensure social protection and foster economic recovery, Deputy Secretary-General Asha-Rose Migiro told the Commission for Social Development as it opened its fiftieth session today.

The Committee on Non-Governmental Organizations continued its consideration of new applications for consultative status with the Economic and Social Council today, recommending 15 more non-governmental organizations (NGOs) for special consultative status and postponing consideration of 45, owing to probes ranging from the political aspects underpinning a humanitarian organization’s work to how another monitored cases of international law violations and war crimes.

High-level officials from the United States, the United Kingdom, France and other Member States converged on the Security Council today to press for the adoption of a draft resolution that would support a plan by the League of Arab States to stem the bloodshed in Syria, and which calls on the country’s President to step aside as part of a democratic transition process.

The Committee on Non-Governmental Organizations today continued its careful scrutiny of applicants seeking consultative status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council, adding 37 new organizations to the more than 3,500 NGOs admitted since the Committee’s launch in 1946, while postponing consideration of 43 new applications pending responses to questions posed by Committee members.

Opening its regular session for 2012, the Committee on Non-Governmental Organizations, which is responsible for vetting applications seeking consultative status with the Economic and Social Council, today recommended special consultative status for 47 organizations, all but three of which were based in countries in the global South.

The new Chair of the Peacebuilding Commission pledged today that he would pursue “the path of inclusion” throughout 2012 to enhance the six-year-old body’s ability to mobilize resources and align key actors in assisting the populations of countries emerging from conflict.

A spike in weapons proliferation, organized crime and terrorism — compounded by a massive influx of migrants returning from Libya — was exerting pressure on already-struggling countries across the Sahel region, the Security Council heard today as the senior United Nations political official briefed members on peace and security in Africa.

The international community must continue supporting the security and recovery priorities already identified by the Government of Côte d’Ivoire, as “remarkable progress” was being made towards restoring normalcy since the end of the violent post-election crisis last year, the Secretary-General’s representative told the Security Council this morning.