The Economic and Social Council opened its eighth annual Youth Forum today under the theme “Empowered, Included and Equal”, with youth delegates and Governments alike sharing ideas for ensuring that the benefits of a globalized world — from technological advancement and better connectivity to increased flows of people, finance and goods — unleash the potential of its 1.2 billion young people.

Delegates elaborating the terms of a new high seas treaty under the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea hailed expanding convergence on many of that instrument’s substantive elements, as the Intergovernmental Conference tasked with drafting a legally-binding instrument on the conservation and sustainable use of marine biological diversity concluded its second session today.

Concluding the first part of its resumed seventy-third session, the Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) today approved four draft resolutions and one draft decision, including one regarding efforts to foster a strong culture of accountability across the United Nations system, but it withdrew another text on a new model of delivering administrative services to Secretariat staff worldwide after failing to reach consensus on the matter.

On 22 March 2019, members of the Security Council Committee established pursuant to resolution 2127 (2013) concerning the Central African Republic were briefed by the Panel of Experts on the Central African Republic in connection with the Panel’s work programme for 2018-2019.

With Bangladesh expecting its first monsoon of the year in the coming weeks, the United Nations refugee agency is ramping up emergency preparations and training of Rohingya refugees as first responders.  Last year, more than 740,000 refugees fleeing Myanmar into Bangladesh experienced their first monsoon.

The Commission on Population and Development concluded its fifty‑second session at Headquarters today with speakers calling for hard work and urgent action to fulfil the promises of the Programme of Action that emerged from the landmark 1994 International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo.

As they adressed the stalled peace process and “creeping annexation” by Israel of the Occupied Palestinian Territory, delegates, activists and policymakers participating in a high-level forum on the question of Palestine considered a variety of solutions ranging from full Palestinian statehood recognition to a bill in Ireland’s parliament to ban imported goods produced in the illegal settlements.

On 4 April 2019, the Security Council Committee established pursuant to resolution 1518 (2003) approved the removal of the following entities from its List of Individuals and Entities subject to the assets freeze set out by paragraphs 19 and 23 of Security Council resolution 1483 (2003) adopted under Chapter VII of the Charter of the United Nations:

Following is UN Secretary-General António Guterres’ message for World Health Day, observed on 7 April:

Representatives from civil society today advocated for a rights-based approach to demographic issues, urging Governments to scale up their support for education and health, as the Commission on Population and Development concluded its general debate.