Meetings Coverage

“Confidence begets confidence; stability begets stability; security begets security; peace begets peace,” said Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today in a message to the International Meeting in Support of Israeli-Palestinian Peace, urging solid support for a resolution of the decades-old conflict.

As it continued its forty-eighth session, the Commission on Social Development this afternoon approved its first ever resolution on promoting social integration in order to eradicate poverty, promote full and productive employment and achieve stable, safe, peaceful harmonious and just societies for all ‑‑ goals set forth in the Copenhagen Declaration on Social Development and its Programme of Action.

Issues of borders, settlements, refugees, Jerusalem, and water dominated discussion this afternoon in the International Meeting in Support of Israeli-Palestinian Peace, as experts made compelling cases for why each was the pivotal permanent status issue around which renewed peace negotiations should coalesce.

As the Economic and Social Council continued to fine tune the agenda of its 2010 session, the 54-member body’s President today announced the chairpersons for the thematic clusters examined annually by the Council, and urged delegations to conclude negotiations and present their proposals as soon as possible so that all outstanding matters could be addressed ahead of the substantive session -- set to be held from 28 June to 23 July in New York.

The Commission for Social Development met today to consider its agenda item on programme questions and other matters.

The challenges facing Darfur must be met within a national context at this critical time for Sudan, Dmitry Titov, Assistant Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations, told the Security Council today, emphasizing that core issues such as power- and wealth-sharing required a comprehensive and farsighted approach that took into account the interests of all stakeholders, particularly those too long marginalized by the conflict.

Holding its second organizational meeting this year, the Economic and Social Council today adopted five decisions, outlining its agenda and work programme for its 2010 substantive session, set to be held from 28 June to 23 July in New York.

Just days ahead of the opening of the XXI Winter Olympics in Vancouver, Canada, the General Assembly took note today of the solemn appeal made by its President to all United Nations Member States to observe the ancient tradition of the “Olympic Truce”, during which warring parties would stop fighting and lay down their arms in celebration of the Games.

Despite an encouraging commitment to peacebuilding priorities on the part of the Guinea-Bissau authorities, there had been only slow progress in security-sector reform, economic development and combating drug trafficking, the Chairperson of the Peacebuilding Commission’s relevant country-specific configuration said today.

The policy responses to the global financial crisis had been inadequate and characterized by double standards, Jomo Kwame Sundaram, Assistant Secretary-General for Economic Development of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs, told the Commission on Social Development as it began its discussion of policy responses on employment and the social consequences of the financial and economic crises, including its gender dimension.