Features

ECOSOC charges ahead

A renewed Economic and Social Council meets this month in Geneva. A Council that is more visible and relevant, with strengthened machinery to monitor implementation of internationally agreed development goals. The presence of senior government officials at the Council’s new Annual Ministerial Review is expected to lend important weight to the UN development agenda.

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Alternative thinking on national development strategies

Shaping national development strategies is a particular challenge for policy-makers around the world at a time when prevailing economic and financial rules and the liberalization of trade and capital movements have greatly constrained the room for maneuver countries enjoy for designing and setting policies.

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High-level dialogue on the state of the world economy

Sha Zukang, Under-Secretary-General of Economic and Social Affairs, moderates a discussion on international economic cooperation at the opening of the Economic and Social Council’s 2007 session in Geneva.

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Publications and websites

Millennium Development Goals Report 2007

The 2007 edition of the Millennium Development Goals Report has just been launched. According to the report, progress towards achieving the MDGs by 2015 remains mixed. Significant breakthroughs have been made in the area of poverty reduction with the proportion of people living on one dollar a day dropping from 1.25 billion in 1990 to 980 million in 2004.

The United Nations Development Agenda: Development for All

The historic United Nations conferences and summits held in the past two decades generated an unprecedented global consensus on a shared vision of development. These remarkable participatory processes, and the array of development goals that were agreed through them, laid the groundwork for the Millennium Summit, at which a series of challenging time-bound goals and targets were adopted.

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Comings and goings

Comings

Mr. Sha Zukang has been appointed Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs effective 1 July. Before taking up his position as head of DESA, Mr. Sha was a career diplomat of the People’s Republic of China with substantial experience in multilateral negotiations in a wide range of fields, including trade, labour, human rights, health, arms control, intellectual property and telecommunications.

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