While implementing the Beijing Platform for Action had been hamstrung by severe resource constraints and a lack of will to combat entrenched stereotypes, more and more women were participating in high-level political decision-making in their countries, with some of the biggest gains made in Africa and Latin America, speakers in the Commission on the Status of Women said today in continued debate.

“If not now, then when? If the Council does not act, then who will?” asked Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Somalia, today as he called on the international community to take immediate action to stabilize the situation in that country.

Embarking on a two-day discussion on the advancement of women, members of the Third Committee (Social, Humanitarian and Cultural) today encouraged speedy completion of proposals for a new United Nations body to oversee gender equality and women’s empowerment, in a process overseen by the Secretary-General with involvement from the Deputy Secretary-General, which was expected to conclude at year’s end.

The Security Council today extended until 31 December 2010 the arrangements for depositing into the Development Fund for Iraq of proceeds from oil and gas export sales. The mandate of the International Advisory and Monitoring Board intended to monitor the Development Fund was also extended.

Assistant Secretary-General and United Nations Controller Jun Yamazaki today presented the Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) with the Secretary‑General’s request for an additional $1 million for three special political missions -- the United Nations Representative on the International Advisory and Monitoring Board of the Development Fund for Iraq, the Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team concerning Al-Qaida and the Taliban, and the Monitoring Group on Somalia.

As the General Assembly gathered to mark the 15th anniversary of the Beijing Platform for Action which remains the most far-reaching international commitment to women’s rights senior United Nations officials today told hundreds of women delegates that the fight against the disadvantages they still faced must continue, because gender equality and empowerment of women and girls was not just a goal in itself, but a key to long-term development, economic growth, and social advancement for all.

While Mexico was working to build a participatory democracy that protected fundamental freedoms, the Government faced complex challenges in closing gaps in human rights legislation and reforming the laws, policies, and practices that gave rise to them, a senior official in Mexico’s Interior Ministry told the Human Rights Committee today as it began its ninety-sixth session.

Concluding its seven-day session, the Special Committee charged with weighing proposals to enhance the United Nations Charter today adopted its 2010 report, containing recommendations directed at the General Assembly.

Addressing the Commission on the Status of Women’s fifty-fourth session this afternoon, Deputy Secretary-General Asha-Rose Migiro said the General Assembly’s proposal to create a United Nations body for gender issues was an historic opportunity to give women a stronger voice in global governance and policymaking.

While recognizing measures taken by the Mexican Government to reconcile the country’s national legislation with its obligations under international human rights treaties, experts on the Human Rights Committee today expressed concern that the means of addressing incompatibilities between those treaties and laws below the constitutional level remained unclear.