United Nations summit meeting, to be held in the fall of 2005, would serve to strengthen and unite the UN, reflecting the aspirations of the entire membership, rather than those of just the selected few and the powerful. Permanent Representative of Pakistan to the UN, Ambassador Munir Akram has expressed the hope while addressing the preparatory meeting of the UN General Assembly on Wednesday.
The meeting was convened by the President of the UN General Assembly to discuss the modalities, format and organisation of the 2005 Summit.
Munir Akram said it would not be sufficient to the Summit to adopt a broad declaratory agenda, but in fact there was a need to have concrete decisions on issues of vital interest to the larger UN membership.
He proposed the preparatory process should be guided by three Cs ie caution, comprehensiveness, and consensus. He elaborated that we should move with caution so that the process was not led by the ambitions of a few states rather than the collective interests of the UN; pursue a comprehensive approach to evolve an integrated package of decisions, and take decisions by consensus to evolve united UN.
The 2005 Summit, coinciding with the 60th anniversary of the founding of the UN, will be an event of decisive importance, which would review the implementation of the Millennium Declaration. It will be an opportunity to build on the vision of the world leaders agreed four years ago in the Millennium Declaration for building a better and safer world for the 21st century.
A large number of countries, including Pakistan, participated in the informal consultations. To facilitate discussions, the Secretary General has prepared a report which proposes that the summit be held in New York on 14 to 16 September 2005 in the form of plenary meetings and four interactive roundtables.
Addressing the meeting, Ambassador Munir Akram stated the Pakistan delegation attached high importance to the 2005 Summit, which would provide an historic opportunity to review the implementation of the Millennium Declaration and the integrated follow up of UN conferences and summits.
The three main reports in the coming few months are the report of the high level panel on threats to peace and security; report of Professor Gefferey Sachs on Millennium Development Goals, and Secretary General's comprehensive report, it was of crucial importance that the relevant organs and bodies of the UN must provide concise inputs to the preparatory process.
The Economic and Social Council (Ecosoc), which has the responsibility of integrated follow up of the UN conferences and summits in the economic, social and related fields, as well as its functional commissions such as CHR, CSD, etc, should contribute concrete ideas and inputs to the 2005 event.
Endorsing the position of the Group 77, which has called for the event to focus on development issues, Ambassador Akram underlined the importance of having substantive inputs in the fields of trade, technology transfer and finance.
On the issues of peace and security, he hoped that the General assembly would take the lead to discuss the issues including the recommendations of the high level panel in an open-ended and transparent setting.
The Ambassador expressed the hope and confidence that the President of General Assembly would lead the preparatory process in an open, transparent and inclusive manner with inputs by all stakeholders and the relevant UN bodies. He assured the President of full co-operation of Pakistan delegation.
Comments
Comments are closed.