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ECOSOC adopts four resolutions and concludes considerations of its operational activities segment and humanitarian affairs segment

The Economic and Social Council this morning adopted three resolutions under its Operational Activities Segment, entitled "operational activities of the United Nations for international development cooperation", and adopted one resolution under its Humanitarian Affairs Segment, entitled "special economic, humanitarian and disaster relief assistance", and then concluded consideration of both segments.

In a resolution entitled appointment of the Executive Director of the United Nations Population Fund, adopted without a vote, the Economic and Social Council recommended, among other things, to the General Assembly the adoption of the following draft resolution: The General Assembly notes that, since the Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme ceased to perform the administrative role with respect to the United Nations Population Fund, no formal procedure has been established for the appointment of the Executive Director of the Fund; decides that the secretariat of the United Nations Population Fund shall continue to be headed by an Executive Director at the Under-Secretary-General level; and also decides that the Executive Director of the United Nations Population Fund shall be appointed by the Secretary-General, in consultation with the Executive Board of the United Nations Development Programme/United Nations Population Fund, for a term of four years.

In a resolution entitled operational activities for development, adopted without a vote, the Economic and Social Council recommended that the General Assembly, at its sixty-fourth session, request the Secretary-General to postpone to its sixty-seventh session the submission, through the Economic and Social Council, of the comprehensive analysis of the implementation of Assembly resolution 62/208 of 19 December 2007, to be prepared in accordance with the guidance contained in paragraph 143 thereof.

In a resolution entitled progress in the implementation of General Assembly resolution 62/208 on the triennial comprehensive policy review of operational activities for development of the United Nations system, adopted without a vote, the Council, among other things, called upon the organizations of the United Nations development system, within their organizational mandates, to further improve their institutional accountability mechanisms. It also called upon the organizations of the United Nations development system to continue their efforts to achieve gender balance within the United Nations system at all levels, both in headquarters and at field duty stations.

The Council also deferred its consideration of the report on "South-South Cooperation for development" contained in (A/63/39) to its substantive session in 2010.

Seth Nikhil, Director of the Office for ECOSOC Support and Coordination, in his evaluation of the Operational Activities Segment, said the General Assembly attached an important role to the Council in terms of its operational activities, the harmonization of business practices and funding of operations activities, with a particular focus on emphasizing national points in ECOSOC's deliberations. The ability of national focal points brought to the Council's global deliberations a certain depth and perspective that was sometimes missing from the discussion. This type of participation should be enforced, in particular with developing countries practitioners.

Carmen Marie Gallardo Hernandez, Vice President of the Economic and Social Council, speaking before closing the Operational Activities Segment, said during the segment the heads of funds and programmes had presented the work of their organizations in areas related to development effectiveness and national capacity building. The ultimate goal of operational activities was to enhance countries' capacities to pursue poverty eradication, sustained economic growth and sustainable development, and the Council should not lose sight of this.

Under its Humanitarian Affairs Segment, the Council adopted a resolution on strengthening of the coordination of emergency humanitarian assistance of the United Nations, adopted by consensus, in which the Council called upon all States and parties to comply fully with the provisions of international humanitarian law. The Council urged Member States to continue to take the necessary steps to ensure the safety and security of humanitarian personnel, premises, facilities, equipment, vehicles and supplies, and urged Member States to continue to prevent, investigate and prosecute acts of gender-based violence, including sexual violence in humanitarian emergencies.

John Holmes, Under-Secretary-General and Emergency Humanitarian Relief Coordinator, in his evaluation of the Humanitarian Affairs Segment, said the discussions during the segment had been rich and valuable, and the panels had enriched the discussion with real-world perspectives and expertise. It was worrying that the struggle for full and unimpeded humanitarian access remained the focus of humanitarian workers rather than the delivery of humanitarian assistance. On the debate on whether humanitarian assistance challenged territorial integrity and sovereignty, this was a sterile debate, and should not arise at all in the context of a classic natural disaster. The protection of civilians in armed conflict had not been explicitly discussed, although it was implicit in many of the debates. That sexual violence continued in so many conflict areas was appalling.

The Economic and Social Council also took note of the following documents: the report of the Joint Inspection Unit on the National Execution of Technical Cooperation Projects (E/2009/103); the report of the Secretary-General on actions taken by the executive boards and governing bodies of the United Nations funds, programmes and specialized agencies in the area of simplification and harmonization of the United Nations development system; the report of the Executive Board of the United Nations Children's Fund on its first, second and annual sessions of 2008 (E/2008/34/Rev.1 - E/ICEF/2008/7/Rev.1, Supp. No. 14); the report of the Executive Board of the United Nations Development Programme/ United Nations Population Fund on its work during 2008 (E/2008/35, Supp. No. 15) and its first regular session (DP/2009/9) and annual session of 2009 (DP/2009/22); the report of the Administrative of the United Nations Development Programme and the Executive Director of the United Nations Population Fund on its regular session of 2009 (E/2009/5); the annual report of the Executive Board of the United Nations Children's Fund on its first regular session of 2009 (E/2009/6-E/ICEF/2009/3); the annual report of the World Food Programme for 2008 (E/2009/14); the report of the Executive Board of the United Nations Children's Fund on the work of its 2009 first regular session (E/2009/34 (Part I) - E/ICEF/2009/7 (Part II)); the report of the Executive Board of the United Nations Children's Fund on the work of its first regular session of 2009: Addendum: Joint meeting of the Executive Boards of the United Nations Development Programme/United Nations Population Fund, United Nations Children's Fund, and World Food Programme (E/2009/34 (Part I) Add. 1-E/ICEF/2009/7 (Part I)/ Add. 1); the report of the Executive Board of the World Food Programme on its first and second regular sessions and annual session of 2008 (E/2009/36, Supp. No. 16); the extract from the report of the Executive Board of the United Nations Children's Fund on its 2009 annual session (8-10 June 2009) - Decisions adopted by the Executive Board at its annual session of 2009 (E/2009/L.11); and the report of the Secretary-General on strengthening of the coordination of emergency humanitarian assistance of the United Nations (A/64/84-E/2009/87).

Introducing draft resolutions was a representative of New Zealand.

Speaking in general comment were the representatives of Brazil and New Zealand.

Speaking in an explanation of the vote after the vote were representatives of Syria and Brazil.

ECOSOC will meet at 10 a.m. on Thursday, 23 July to begin its consideration of agenda item 6 on the implementation and follow-up to major United Nations Conferences and Summits, 6(a) on the follow-up to the International Conference on Financing for Development and 8 on implementation of General Assembly resolutions 50/227, 52/12 B, 57/270 B, 60/265, under the General Segment.

Action on Resolutions Under Operational Activities Segment

In a resolution entitled appointment of the Executive Director of the United Nations Population Fund (E/2009/L.19), adopted without a vote, the Economic and Social Council recommends to the General Assembly the adoption of the following draft resolution: The General Assembly notes that, since the Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme ceased to perform the administrative role with respect to the United Nations Population Fund, no formal procedure has been established for the appointment of the Executive Director of the Fund; decides that the secretariat of the United Nations Population Fund shall continue to be headed by an Executive Director at the Under-Secretary-General level; and also decides that the Executive Director of the United Nations Population Fund shall be appointed by the Secretary-General, in consultation with the Executive Board of the United Nations Development Programme/United Nations Population Fund, for a term of four years.

SABVIELLE EMEVY (New Zealand), introducing resolution E/2009/L.19, said Norway and New Zealand wished to note that in the Report of the Executive Board of UNDP and UNFPA, the Board invited the Council to recommend to the General Assembly the need to formalise the appointment procedure to the post of Executive Director of UNFPA. Since the decision of the General Assembly, Secretary-Generals had appointed two consecutive Executive Directors using the same process applying to UNICEF. The purpose of the Board's request was to formally regularise the procedures being used by the Secretary-General. The resolution did not apply to the current incumbent of the post.

In a resolution entitled operational activities for development (E/2009/L.15), adopted without a vote, the Economic and Social Council, recalling General Assembly resolution 63/232 of 19 December 2008, in which the Assembly, inter alia, decided to hold its next comprehensive policy review of operational activities for development of the United Nations system in 2012 and subsequent reviews on a quadrennial basis, recommends that the General Assembly, at its sixty-fourth session, request the Secretary-General to postpone to its sixty-seventh session the submission, through the Economic and Social Council, of the comprehensive analysis of the implementation of Assembly resolution 62/208 of 19 December 2007, to be prepared in accordance with the guidance contained in paragraph 143 thereof.

In a resolution entitled progress in the implementation of General Assembly resolution 62/208 on the triennial comprehensive policy review of operational activities for development of the United Nations system (E/2009/L.18), adopted without a vote, the Council encourages the United Nations Evaluation Group to continue its work on the harmonisation of evaluation practices across the system, to bring evaluation practices up to standard, and to professionalise evaluation capacities; encourages the United Nations Development Group to develop indicators to assess the sustainability of capacity-building activities of the United Nations system; calls upon the organizations of the United Nations development system, within their organizational mandates, to further improve their institutional accountability mechanisms; requests the United Nations Development Group, in close cooperation with the United Nations Development Programme to further develop approaches and tools for measuring and reporting on the costs and benefits of coordination, including input on best practices and lessons learned from the field on the functioning of the resident coordinator system; urges the accelerated coordination of efforts by headquarters units and mechanisms within the United Nations development system to provide relevant, efficient and timely support and guidance to resident coordinators; requests United Nations system organizations to support efforts by the United Nations Development Group to strengthen the capability of the United Nations system for improving the process through which the resident coordinators are selected and trained, as well as for attracting and retaining suitable and high-performing resident coordinators; calls upon the organizations of the United Nations development system to continue their efforts to achieve gender balance within the United Nations system at all levels, both in headquarters and at field duty stations; calls upon the United Nations development system to strengthen its ability to support national efforts at the country level to mitigate the impact of the financial crisis; encourages the United Nations system organizations to continue to work towards simplification and harmonisation under the guidance of their executive boards and guiding bodies; urges the Secretary-General to step up efforts to standardise and harmonise the concepts, practices and cost classifications related to transaction costs and cost recovery, while maintaining the principle of full cost recovery in the administration of all non-core/supplementary/extrabudgetary contributions, including in joint programmes; and urges the United Nations funds and programmes and encourages the specialised agencies to ensure that adequate information is included in the existing reporting on simplification and harmonisation to their respective executive boards and governing bodies so as to enable inter-Governmental bodies to make informed decisions on policy changes in a timely manner.

GUILHERME DE AGUIAR PATRIOTA (Brazil) said Brazil wanted conformation that this resolution would not alter the procedure by which proposals were endorsed by the General Assembly.

SETH NIKHIL, Secretary of the Economic and Social Council, said in the case of UNICEF, this draft resolution was to model the appointment of the Executive Director of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) in the same way the Executive Director of the United Nations Children Fund was appointed, and should the General Assembly adopt this draft resolution this would be the case.

GUILHERME DE AGUIAR PATRIOTA (Brazil) said Brazil wondered whether there was any prior substantive discussion on this, and it was an issue of importance as to whether this procedure was modelled on the UNICEF or UNFPA procedure. Did the proponents of the draft resolution feel that it was sufficiently discussed, as Brazil did not feel that this was quite the case, and was not sure whether it was right now in a position to adopt this decision.

SABVIELLE EMEVY (New Zealand), responding, said that this decision had been taken in the Executive Board of the UNFPA, and it therefore actually came from the decision of the Board to recommend to the Council that it recommend to the General Assembly that it regularise this procedure.

SETH NIKHIL, Director, Office for ECOSOC Support and Coordination, in his evaluation of the Operational Activities Segment, said he reflected back to the yard sticks that the President of ECOSOC set out for them. The President told them that the segment should be able to imbue the discussions with a certain strong country level perspective, drawing on the main theme of the high level segment - health, and drawing on the resident coordinator system, and on the human resources and funding dimension. They also wanted to have strong discussions at the country level with people dealing with this on a daily basis. The United Nations funds and programmes should highlight what the United Nations systems was doing with respect to the resident coordinator system. Country teams were deepening their coordination within their respective countries, as well as within the United Nations system, and increasing their focus on the Triennial Comprehensive Policy Review, in particular on capacity development and gender mainstreaming. The General Assembly attached an important role to the Council in terms of its operational activities, the harmonization of business practices and funding of operation activities, with a particular focus on emphasizing national points in ECOSOC's deliberations. The ability of national focal points brought to the Council's global deliberations a certain depth and perspective that was sometimes missing from the discussion. This type of participation should be enforced, in particular with developing countries practitioners. There was strong support for the creation of a high quality statistical database for operational activities in development within the United Nations system. In conclusion he thanked delegations for streamlining their reports, which would enable themselves to track progress in a systematic manner, and the President for her guidance and leadership.

CARMEN MARIA GALLARDO HERNANDEZ, Vice-President of the Economic and Social Council, said during the Operational Activities Segment, the Council had reviewed how far the United Nations system had gone in implementing the policy guidance of the General Assembly on operational activities, and had reflected on how the United Nations development system could best help Governments cope with the challenges of the current world economic situation, and a current global environment marred by uncertainties, adversities, and hardships to help them attain the Millennium Development Goals. The heads of funds and programmes had presented the work of their organizations in areas related to development effectiveness and national capacity building. One heartening message that ran throughout the debates was the continued strong commitment of Member States to the 2007 Triennial Comprehensive Policy Review of the United Nations system's operational activities for development. This unequivocal agreement made it easier to rally the United Nations system and promote sustained implementation of the principles and measures contained in the Review between now and 2012.

Panels showed that the United Nations system had forged ahead with the implementation of the Policy Review in many areas, but progress was slow on other fronts. The share of core resources had been shrinking at a time when funding was needed to carry forward many endeavours. Better ways had yet to be found to measure the impact of the United Nations system's development cooperation, for instance on capacity development. The role of the Council vis-à-vis operational activities was two-fold: it had to provide guidance to implement the Triennial Comprehensive Policy Review, and it had to promote coordination of operational work as part of its charter responsibilities. The debates throughout the segment, and the resolution that had just been adopted, showed that the Council could deliver on this task. It could give pointed guidance on where the United Nations system should go from here to move closer to the goals set by the General Assembly for operational activities, and could provide guidance to deepen coordination and coherence. The ultimate goal of operational activities was to enhance countries' capacities to pursue poverty eradication, sustained economic growth and sustainable development, and the Council should not lose sight of this.

Action on Resolution Under Humanitarian Affairs Segment

In a resolution on strengthening of the coordination of emergency humanitarian assistance of the United Nations, contained in an informal paper and adopted by consensus, the Council encouraged Member States to create and strengthen an enabling environment for the capacity-building of their national and local authorities, national societies of the Red Cross and Red Crescent, and national and local non-governmental and community-based organizations in providing timely humanitarian assistance, and also encourages the international community, the relevant entities of the United Nations and other relevant institutions and organizations to support national authorities in their capacity-building programmes, including through technical cooperation and long-term partnerships based on recognition of their important role in providing humanitarian assistance; encourages Member States, and, where applicable, relevant regional organizations to strengthen operational and legal frameworks for international disaster relief; encourages efforts to enhance cooperation and coordination of United Nations humanitarian entities, other relevant humanitarian organizations and donor countries with the affected State; requests the Emergency Relief Coordinator to continue his efforts to strengthen the coordination of humanitarian assistance; urges all actors engaged in the provision of humanitarian assistance to fully commit to and duly respect the guiding principles contained in the annex of General Assembly resolution 46/182, including the humanitarian principles of humanity, impartiality and neutrality as well as the principle of independence as adopted in General Assembly resolution 58/114; calls upon all parties to armed conflicts to comply with their obligations under international humanitarian law, human rights law and refugee law; calls upon all States and parties to comply fully with the provisions of international humanitarian law; urges Member States to continue to take the necessary steps to ensure the safety and security of humanitarian personnel, premises, facilities, equipment, vehicles and supplies; urges Member States to continue to prevent, investigate and prosecute acts of gender-based violence, including sexual violence in humanitarian emergencies; and calls upon United Nations humanitarian organizations, in consultation with Member States, as appropriate, to strengthen the evidence base for humanitarian assistance.

RANIA RIFAIY (Syria), speaking in an explanation of the vote after the vote, thanked all Member States for their efforts in coming to consensus on this text. Syria showed enormous concessions to reach this consensus and therefore would not block it; however it raised deep concern at the efforts to politicize a number of paragraphs (13/14) in the resolution, which were included in the first place to help civilians, but were now seen to equate the aggressor with the aggressed, and undermined the responsibility of States in this matter. Everyone knew of the grave situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territory and the Syrian Golan, occupied by Israel, while the international community stood by. The occupying power was pushing Syrians away from their lands and forcing them to give up their identity in the Golan. Syria urged the international community to exert pressure on the occupying power to allow unhindered humanitarian aid and assistance to reach the Palestinians in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Baby food and medicine were being used as a bargaining leverage, and Syria was of the view that the international community had to shoulder its responsibility in this context.

GUILHERME DE AGUIAR PATRIOTA (Brazil) speaking in an explanation of the vote after the vote, said Brazil was satisfied at the consensus on this very important resolution which addressed the main concerns of Brazil and the Membership of ECOSOC, and commended the work of the facilitators and the Chair in order to achieve this outcome.

JOHN HOLMES, Under-Secretary-General and Emergency Relief Coordinator, said the discussions during the segment had been rich and valuable, and the panels had enriched the discussion with real-world perspectives and expertise. In due course, all points and issues raised during the segment would be answered. It was sobering that many of the same issues had been discussed in previous years - it was a sad fact that there was still a need to call for the respect of humanitarian principles of independence, humanity, and impartiality. It was worrying that the struggle for full and unimpeded humanitarian access remained the focus of humanitarian workers rather than the delivery of humanitarian assistance. All should thus exert their efforts to provide better access and security for humanitarian workers on the ground. On the debate on whether humanitarian assistance challenged territorial integrity and sovereignty, this was a sterile debate, and should not arise at all in the context of a classic natural disaster. There should be a balance between national and international responsibilities and obligations.

The protection of civilians in armed conflict had not been explicitly discussed, although it was implicit in many of the debates. This was an area where lip-service to norms and principles was not reflected on the ground, where innocent civilians suffered grievously, and work had to be done to ensure that these norms were translated into everyday behaviour more effectively. That sexual violence continued in so many conflict areas was appalling. More needed to be done to give effect on the ground to the comprehensive strategy that already existed. It was also clear from the discussions that humanitarian needs were changing and evolving. The daunting scale of humanitarian needs generated by the combined impact of global mega-trends of climate change, population growth and urbanisation required more and better humanitarian assistance. The biggest single issue was how to tackle chronic vulnerability on the scale it may currently be emerging. This was an opportunity to bring together humanitarian and development actors. The resolution adopted was a statement to the world of shared humanitarian concerns and commonality of purpose, and would make a valuable contribution to the United Nations body of legislation on humanitarian issues, not least on coordination.

For use of the information media; not an official record

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