Meetings Coverage

The recent escalation of violence in Yemen is jeopardizing the quest for a political solution to the conflict in that country and inflicting significant harm on civilians, senior United Nations officials told the Security Council today.

The Security Council decided to renew the mandate of the United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) today amid encouraging developments in that country’s peace process, including the beginning of efforts to form the Revitalized Transitional Government of National Unity.

Speakers praised and called for more details about the roll-out of a new framework for assigning senior managers greater authority to make decisions and hold their staff accountable for results, as the Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) met to review the efficiency of that system in the United Nations Secretariat.

The Security Council welcomed the significant steps taken towards ending the war in Afghanistan and opening the door to intra-Afghan negotiations enabled by the recent peace agreement signed by the United States and the Taliban.

The Commission on the Status of Women opened its sixty-fourth session today, adopting a political declaration commemorating the twenty-fifth anniversary of the landmark Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, which together offer the world’s most progressive blueprint for achieving gender equality.

The Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary), continuing its first resumed session, put a spotlight on human resources management today, with delegates hailing progress towards gender parity among the Secretariat’s more than 37,000 staff members worldwide while also pressing for greater efforts to recruit personnel on as wide a geographical basis as possible.

The General Assembly today encouraged further strengthening the global diamond certification scheme known as the Kimberley Process to make it more effective and to ensure that it remains relevant in the future while also contributing to international peace and security and the achievement of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

The Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) opened the first part of its resumed seventy‑fourth session today, approving its provisional work programme amid an outcry from some delegates over the General Assembly’s 14 January decision to expand membership of the Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions (ACABQ) without consulting them.

The security situation in and around Idlib continues to deteriorate, the United Nations top official for peacebuilding told the Security Council today, noting the severe impact on civilian populations as targeted attacks on populated areas continue to be carried out in plain sight.