While welcoming West Africa’s positive strides in post-conflict recovery, peacebuilding and governance today, the Security Council noted with “deep concern” the fragile nature of those achievements, and stressed the importance of adopting a comprehensive strategy to tackle a raft of emerging threats in the subregion.

Following is Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s message, as delivered by Roland Rich, Executive Head of the United Nations Democracy Fund, to the Fifth Ministerial Conference of the Community of Democracies, in Lisbon, Portugal, being held on 11 and 12 July:

Following are UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s remarks to the formal meeting of the Organizational Committee of the Peacebuilding Commission, In New York today, 13 July:

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has appointed Ad Melkert of the Netherlands as his Special Representative for Iraq. Mr. Melkert currently serves as the United Nations Under-Secretary-General and Associate Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in New York, and will replace Staffan de Mistura.

The following statement was issued today by the Spokesperson for UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon:

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon this afternoon spelled out five key ways to help post-conflict countries achieve sustainable peace more rapidly and effectively, as he addressed the Peacebuilding Commission’s third session.

Following is UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s statement to the Security Council today, 13 July:

The refusal by Myanmar’s senior leadership to allow Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to meet with Daw Aung San Suu Kyi was not only a deep disappointment, but also a major lost opportunity for the country, he told the Security Council today. Briefing the Council on his recent visit to Myanmar, he said that allowing such a meeting would have sent a constructive, conciliatory signal inside the country and abroad.

The First Committee (Disarmament and International Security), in its last meeting of the current session, met this morning to fill the remaining vacancies on its Bureau for the upcoming sixty-fourth session of the General Assembly. The Committee elected by acclamation Hossam Aly ( Egypt), Hilario G. Davide, Jr. (Philippines), Florian Laudi (Germany) as Vice-Chairmen, and Tetyana Pokhval’ona (Ukraine) as Rapporteur for the Assembly session.

Following is the text of UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s speech to the High-Level Segment of the Fifteenth Non-Aligned Movement Summit, in Sharm el‑Sheikh, Egypt, today, 15 July: