Second Committee

The Second Committee (Economic and Financial) met this morning to fill vacant positions on its Bureau for the upcoming sixty-sixth session of the General Assembly.

Concluding its sixty-fifth session today, the Second Committee (Economic and Financial) approved 15 draft resolutions, including one on agriculture development and food security, by which the General Assembly would stress the need to enhance production, productivity and sustainability, while calling for the timely realization of the 2009 G-8 commitment to mobilize $20 billion over three years for sustainable agricultural development.

The General Assembly would stress the importance of responsible borrowing and lending, while urging all lenders and borrowers to integrate debt sustainability analyses into their decisions in order to help maintain sustainable debt levels through a coordinated and cooperative approach, according to one of seven draft resolutions that the Second Committee (Economic and Financial) approved by consensus today.

The General Assembly would encourage Member States to approach the upcoming United Nations Climate Change Conference in Cancún, Mexico, with a view to achieving a substantive, balanced and ambitious outcome,according to one of seven draft resolutions approved by consensus today in the Second Committee (Economic and Financial).

The global economic and financial crisis had highlighted the need to reform the international financial system and architecture, and added a new impetus to ongoing international discussions on that subject, the General Assembly would stress, according to one of three draft resolutions approved without a vote by the Second Committee (Economic and Financial) today.

The General Assembly would demand that Israel stop exploiting, damaging, depleting or endangering natural resources in occupied Arab lands, by the terms of one of five draft resolutions approved today by its Second Committee (Economic and Financial).

The General Assembly would call upon the United Nations to promote ecotourism as an instrument to help realize the Millennium Development Goals, and to support similar efforts by developing countries, by the terms of one of three draft resolutions that the Second Committee approved by consensus today.

Israel’s continuing restrictions on Palestinian movement and access to natural resources, its expansion of settlements, and its military offensive against the Gaza Strip in December 2008 and January 2009 had deepened the hardship suffered by the Palestinians, Amr Nour, Director of the United Nations Regional Commissions New York Office, told the Second Committee (Economic and Financial) today.

In assessing the importance of equity in evaluating different growth strategies, the international community must consider the cultural context rather than simply comparing poverty levels, Jan Kubiš, Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for Europe (ECE), told the Second Committee this afternoon during its annual dialogue with the United Nations regional commissions.

Despite marked improvements for millions of slum-dwellers worldwide over the last decade, the number of people living in urban squalor was still rising and must be addressed through global action, Joan Clos, Executive Director of the United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat), told the Second Committee (Economic and Financial) today as it began consideration the work of that agency.