The Department of General Assembly Affairs and Conference Services consists of three Divisions and one Service, which correspond to the relevant programme structure in the current Medium-term Plan of the United Nations. The functions of each Division and Service are described below.

Central Planning and Coordination Service

This Service provides central planning services for meetings and documentation, and coordinates conference services worldwide.

Its core functions are as follows:

Develop and coordinate the Biennial Calendar of Conferences and Meetings of the United Nations; and plan and service meetings at Headquarters and coordinate the servicing of meetings at other locations;

Plan and monitor the processing of documentation at Headquarters in accordance with the requirements of meetings; and ensure compliance with instructions and guidelines on control and limitation of documentation;

Maintain statistical records of conference-servicing activities;

Provide substantive and technical secretariat services for the Committee on Conferences; and,

Provide secretariat services for the Inter-Agency Meeting on Language Arrangements, Documentation and Publications.
 

General Assembly and ECOSOC Affairs Division

Its core functions are as follows:

Provide secretariat services to the General Assembly, its General Committee and Main Committees and various subsidiary bodies and working groups;

Provide secretariat services to the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) and most of its subsidiary bodies, and ad hoc bodies and special conferences dealing with economic, social and related subjects;

Provide secretariat services to the Trusteeship Council;

Plan and organize activities and services related to sessions of the organs and bodies mentioned above;

Provide assistance to the President of the General Assembly, the President of ECOSOC, the President of the Trusteeship Council and the presiding officers of the other bodies mentioned above in all matters relating to the conduct of their work; and

Advise delegations and Secretariat units and officials on the work of these organs and bodies  based on the rules of procedure of the relevant organs as well as established practices.

Interpretation, Meetings and Publishing Division
 

The core functions of the Division are as follows:

Provide interpretation services from and into Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish for meetings held at Headquarters and those at other locations which the Department is responsible for servicing;

Prepare verbatim records of meetings of the General Assembly, the Security Council and other bodies entitled to them;

Prepare documents and other materials both for printing and electronic dissemination using text-processing or desktop publishing methods;

Develop and apply standards for the typographic formatting of United Nations documents in all official languages of the Organization; provide guidance to the Departments and Offices on best practices in electronic publishing;

Print documents, publications and other materials;

Distribute and store documents, publications and other materials, and manage the storage of such material on the optical disk system (an electronic archiving system) and its retrieval; and

Process and dispatch official correspondence.

Translation and Editorial Division
 

The core functions of the Division are as follows:

Translate all official United Nations documents, meeting records, publications and correspondence at Headquarters from and into Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish;

Prepare summary records of bodies entitled to such records;

Translate selected materials into German;

Arrange for contractual translation and text-processing where appropriate and cost-effective;

Edit drafts of parliamentary documents, and edit and prepare for reproduction the official records of meetings and sessions;

Issue drafting and editorial directives for the Secretariat; and,

Provide reference and terminology services for authors, drafters, editors, interpreters, translators and verbatim reporters.