Economic and Financial Committee (Second Committee)
Second Committee
The Economic and Financial Committee (Second Committee) of the General Assembly at its seventy-second session, is chaired by His Excellency Mr. SVEN JÜRGENSON of Estonia. During this session, it will deal with issues relating to economic growth and development such as macroeconomic policy questions; financing for development; sustainable development; human settlements; globalization and interdependence; eradication of poverty; operational activities for development; agriculture development, food security and nutrition; information and communications technologies for development; and towards global partnerships.
The Second Committee will also consider issues relating to groups of countries in special situations. It will also consider the item on permanent sovereignty of the Palestinian people in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and of the Arab population in the occupied Syrian Golan over their natural resources.
At the seventy-first session, the Second Committee took action on 36 draft proposals. The Committee is expected to act on a similar number of, if not more, proposals during this year’s session.
As in previous sessions, the Second Committee will open its general debate with a keynote address by Professor Arvind Panagariya, Professor of Economics and the Jagdish Bhagwati Professor of Indian Political Economy in the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University. The Committee will also hold a dialogue with the Executive Secretaries of the Regional Commissions as well as schedule a number of side events and a joint meeting with the Economic and Social Council as part of its programme of work.
In accordance with the on-going process of revitalization of the General Assembly, the Second Committee is engaged in updating its working methods and practices in order to improve the quality of debates and the impact of their deliberations and decisions, as well as to further streamline the Committee’s agenda and programme of work, biennialize agenda items, cluster the consideration of agenda items thematically, hold interactive “question time” sessions with secretariat officials after the presentation of substantive reports, and actively work to reduce the number and length of draft resolutions adopted during its sessions.
In line with General Assembly resolution 66/246, the formal meetings of the Second Committee will be webcast live at the UN Web TV website. Past meetings of the session will also be available from the video archives.
[26 September 2017]
