Theme for General Assembly 71st General Debate announced

The President-elect for the 71^st Session of the UN General Assembly, Ambassador Peter Thompson, has announced the theme for the 71^st General Debate, which will take place in September as The Sustainable Development Goals: a universal push to transform our world.

See attached letter

Delegations' objections, etc, following adoption of resolution on follow-up and review

The General Assembly adopted the resolution on Friday 29 July on follow-up and review which decides that the High-Level Political Forum  (HLPF) will spend the next three years focusing on a range of specific themes and targets, ranging from eradicating poverty to building resilience to empowering communities...

The provisions of the resolution

While the Assembly adopted the draft resolution titled “Follow-up and review of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development at the global level” by consensus,...

Click to read more ...

H E Frederick Musiiwa Makamure Shave elected President of ECOSOC

H E Frederick Musiiwa Makamure Shava was elected as the seventy-second President of the Economic and Social Council on 28 July 2016. Ambassador Shava is currently the Ambassador and Permanent Representative of the Republic of Zimbabwe to the United Nations in New York. 

Until his appointment in 2014, he served as Ambassador to China since 2007.  From 2003 to 2004, Ambassador Shava was a consultant on Zimbabwe’s Parliamentary reform.  As an elected official, he was Minister of State for Political Affairs in 1987 and Minister of Labour, Manpower Planning and Development from 1981 to 1986.

See: https://www.un.org/ecosoc/en/president/biography

Resolution on 2030 follow-up and review – consensus reached on draft

The President of the General Assembly has circulated a further letter in which he says that he has been informed that “consensus has been reached on the draft text” for the resolution on follow up and review. It will now go to the General Assembly on Friday 29 July 2016.

According to the draft resolution...

Click to read more ...

Resolution on 2030 follow-up and review – still no agreement

The President of the UN General Assembly, Mogens Lykketoft has written to inform UN Member States that, at the request of Group of 77 and China, the informal consultations on the follow-up and review of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development "effectively have to be concluded" by 2 September 2016, and that facilitation must be done by Member States. In their letter, sent by the Chair of the Group of 77 and China, which is attached to his letter, he had been requested to renew his facilitation and good...

Click to read more ...

ECOSOC takes action on draft decision of Statistical Commission on indicator framework

The UN Economic and Social Council (“ECOSOC”) met in early June to consider and adopt the report of the Statistical Commission’s meetings in March 2016, which included the its agreement on SDG indicators. 

Ms. Wasmália Bivar, Chairperson of the Statistical Commission updated the ECOSOC by video, summarizing the most recent outcomes...

Click to read more ...

General Assembly High-Level Meeting on Antimicrobial Resistance, 21 September 2016 – update

A note has been circulated by Juan José Gómez Camacho, Permanent Representative of Mexico to the United Nations, as the Facilitator on the modalities resolution for the High Level Meeting on Antimicrobial Resistance  (AMR) of the plenary of the UN General Assembly to be held on 21 September. The silence was not broken on the resolution, on which a slight-additional editorial amendment was made at the request of the European Union, with the agreement of all countries...

Click to read more ...

Report of the round table on Young People and the SDGs

We have received the following from Rutgers:

MANY thanks for joining us at the side-event/round table on young people and the SDGs, last week during the HLPF!!

Your contributions to the discussions were very valuable. Attached you can find the narrative report of the event. On our website, we have really nice pictures, the action agenda and all the endorsements, as well as blog posts that were written during the HLPF. 

We hope to work with you in the future to ensure a real focus on and participation of young people in the implementation and follow up of the SDGs.

Note that this side-event was organized by the...

Click to read more ...

28 July Meeting with Co-Facilitators of UN Summit for Refugees & Migrants at UNHQ: Register to Speak or Attend / Submit Video Comments

We have received the following from UN-NGLS and UN DESA 

Dear Colleagues,

At the request of the Co-Facilitators of the UN Summit for Refugees and Migrants (Jordan and Ireland), UN-NGLS and UN DESA invite stakeholders to register to participate in a one-hour meeting with them on 28 July at 10:00am at UN Headquarters (room TBC), or to submit short video comments that will be considered for inclusion in the meeting...

Click to read more ...

HLPF Ministerial Declaration adopted

The High-level Political Forum Ministerial Declaration was adopted after a vote on paragraph 19 on language on Paris Agreement was called for by Nicaragua. It stated that Nicaragua refuses to sign the Paris Agreement because it will not ensure remaining below 1.5 degrees. Its requests for flexible language in the Ministerial Declaration had not even been heard by "powerful countries", and did not find any understanding from the co-facilitators. Hence it called for a vote on paragraph 19.

The result of the vote was 141 in favour of keeping paragraph 19; 1 against; and 3 abstentions (Russia, Myanmar, Egypt)...

Click to read more ...