The forty-fifth session focused on employment, ageing, disability and youth.  With the United Nations estimating that some 195 million men and women had been unable to find work in 2006, and that 1.4 billion -– half the global workforce –- held jobs that did not pay enough to lift them above the $2-a-day poverty line, the Commission devoted the first in a series of two-year action-oriented implementation cycles, which would include a review and a policy segment, to “promoting full employment and decent work for all”.

The Commission adopted, by consensus, key resolutions urging greater attention to the needs of youth and elderly persons as countries pursued national social policy and wider development goals.

It recognized that young people formed an active part of society and were an important actor for social development, the Commission -– by the terms of its resolution on youth -- encouraged Member States to involve young people and their organizations in all aspects of youth development, particularly through consultations with youth-led organizations and inclusion of youth representatives in national delegations to relevant United Nations forums. 

By adopting the World Programme of Action for Youth to the Year 2000 and Beyond on the tenth anniversary of International Youth Year in 1995, the United Nations had strengthened its commitment to young people by directing the international community’s response to the challenges facing youth into the next millennium.  The Programme sought to address more effectively the problems of young people and to increase opportunities for their participation in society.  It also provided a policy framework and practical guidelines for national action and international support to improve the situation of youth and contained proposals for action into the twenty-first century to promote improved well-being and livelihood among young people.

Following the first round of the Commission’s appraisal of the International Plan of Action on Ageing -- five years after its adoption by the Second World Assembly on Ageing in Madrid -- the Commission addressed the modalities of national and regional review and appraisal and welcomed Governments’ offers to host regional review meetings this year.

The Commission also adopted a wide-ranging text on African development, emphasizing that rising poverty levels and social exclusion faced by many African countries required the refashioning of social polices to enhance social inclusion, promote economic activity and growth and, among other things, ensure job creation and decent work for all.

Members of the Bureau: