Following the battlefield death of President Idriss Déby Itno on 20 April, senior United Nations officials and representatives of regional groups convened in the General Assembly today to pay tribute to the late Chad leader, many describing him as a valiant defender against the extremist violence spreading relentlessly across Africa’s Sahel region.
Speakers began discussing the Secretary-General’s proposed $6.47 billion budget to cover the cost of a dozen United Nations peacekeeping missions in 2021/22, while stressing the need to break a four-year deadlock over issues that cut across operations, notably sexual exploitation and abuse, as the Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) opened the second part of its resumed seventy-fifth session today.
The Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues concluded its annual session this afternoon, approving several recommendations which reflected this year’s central theme “Peace, justice and strong institutions — the role of indigenous peoples in implementing Sustainable Development Goal 16.”
The General Assembly, adopting four resolutions and one decision this morning, pledged its support for all those affected by a series of devastating recent volcano eruptions on the Caribbean island of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, designated two annual observance days — one to advocate for more women judges and another to spur global action to prevent drowning — while also holding a debate on the impact of rapid technological change on sustainable development.
The Committee on Information continued its annual session today, as delegates decried the epidemic of disinformation spreading around the world faster than the COVID-19 virus and tasked the United Nations with strengthening multilingual strategic communications to inoculate populations against this harmful trend.
International cooperation is vital in reducing disaster risks and building resilience as the world is not insured against future tragedies, speakers told the General Assembly during its commemoration of the thirty-fifth anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant accident in 1986.
The massive spread of misinformation and disinformation and surge of hate speech that has coalesced to undermine global public health during the COVID-19 crisis presents an “immediate test case” for the United Nations Department of Global Communications and its vision of a world thriving in peace, dignity and equality, its chief told the Committee on Information today, as delegates began their annual session.
Facing challenging virtual negotiations and a history of gridlock, the Economic and Social Council’s Commission on Population and Development marked a major achievement today as it adopted its first consensus outcome document in five years, at the conclusion of its fifty-fourth session, with delegates praising the timely focus on links between food security, nutrition, sustainable development and the devastating COVID-19 pandemic.
The Head of the mechanism established in 2016 to increase the prospects for justice in Syria called on representatives in the General Assembly today to set aside their political differences and instead work to ensure that the perpetrators of serious crimes committed during the decade-long conflict are held to account.
The Economic and Social Council, acting without a vote, adopted three decisions today, including one setting out the theme of its upcoming humanitarian affairs segment, while also electing members to 15 subsidiary bodies.
