Meetings Coverage

The United Nations Forum on Forests today launched two vital initiatives: an intergovernmental expert group to conduct in-depth analysis of all aspects of forest financing over the next four years; and a “facilitative process” on forest financing, to assist countries to mobilize funding from all sources.

30 October 2009

General AssemblyGA/EF/3261

Department of Public Information • News and Media Division • New York

Sixty-fourth General Assembly

Second Committee

26^th Meeting (PM)

Concluding a discussion of the proposed budget for 2010-2011, several developing countries on the Fifth Committee insisted that zero growth was not the solution for the Organization’s budget, and called for rectifying imbalances in funding budget priorities.

In its third annual debate on the work of the Human Rights Council, the General Assembly today recognized the newly formed body’s use of innovative mechanisms, special sessions and input from civil society to protect more people around the world from human rights violations.

The General Assembly, deeply alarmed by the number of mines laid each year, as well as the presence of a decreasing but still very large number of mines and explosive remnants of war as a result of armed conflicts, would urge all States to assist countries affected by those weapons in the establishment and development of national mine-action capacities, according to a draft text approved today without a vote by the Fourth Committee.

Presented with the Organization’s 2010-2011 budget that approached $5 billion today, numerous members of the Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) advocated strict financial discipline, close scrutiny of requirements, clear prioritization and redeployment of resources from lower-priority areas, while also insisting on the need to present a full picture of all requirements at the time of the introduction of the budget proposal.

Combined efforts by the United Nations, Governments, civil society and operational implementing partners to efficiently coordinate mine action-related activities gone far to end the suffering caused by landmines and explosive remnants of war, Assistant Secretary-General for the Rule of Law and Security Institutions of the Department of Peacekeeping Operations told the Fourth Committee (Special Political and Decolonization) today.

States’ increased recourse to the International Criminal Court and the International Court of Justice for the peaceful settlement of their disputes on growing and more varied issues pointed to heightened awareness among political leaders of the importance of the rule of law, the top officials of those global judicial bodies told the United Nations General Assembly today.

Noting with concern continuing human rights violations against civilians in Côte d’Ivoire, including numerous acts of sexual violence, the Security Council this morning renewed for another year its arms embargo and diamond trade ban in Côte d’Ivoire, as well as targeted sanctions restricting the travel of individuals that threatened the peace process in the West African country.

The Security Council this afternoon condemned, in the strongest terms, the Taliban, which claimed responsibility for the 28 October terrorist attack that took the lives of several United Nations staff members and others in Kabul, Afghanistan.