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9 March 2000

The General Assembly will meet at 10 a.m. tomorrow, 10 March, to take action on a draft resolution calling for assistance to Mozambique following the devastating floods that have affected that country.

By adopting the draft resolution (A/54/L.79), the Assembly would urge the international community, the United Nations, its specialized agencies and bodies, as well as international financial institutions and non-governmental organizations, to respond urgently and to provide assistance to Mozambique in its relief and rehabilitation and reconstruction efforts and programmes following the disaster. The Secretary-General would be requested to make all necessary arrangements to continue mobilizing and coordinating humanitarian assistance from the specialized agencies and other UN bodies in supporting the efforts of the Government of Mozambique. He would also be requested to continue mobilizing and coordinating assistance for the reconstruction and rehabilitation of the country’s infrastructure, and to meet other needs for the normalization of the life of citizens. The Assembly would encourage the holding of an international donors conference to assist Mozambique in its humanitarian relief, rehabilitation and reconstruction efforts. The draft resolution is sponsored by Mozambique.

There will be another plenary meeting next week, at which time the Assembly will take action on a draft resolution submitted by the President, on the duration, format and chairmanship of the Millennium Summit of the United Nations.

Following informal consultations held on 6 March, the President sent a letter to all Member States, setting out his understanding of that had been agreed. The letter stated that the outcome of the 6 March deliberations included agreement: that the Millennium Summit will be held from Wednesday, 6 September, to Friday, 8 September 2000, inclusive; that the overall theme of the Summit will be "The United Nations in the Twenty-first Century"; that a plenary debate will be held during the Summit; that, simultaneously with the plenary, four consecutive interactive roundtables will be held during the Summit; and that, by a practical arrangement still to be worked out, the country holding the presidency of the fifty-fifth session of the General Assembly will share the chairmanship of the Millennium Summit with the country holding the presidency of the fifty-fourth Assembly session.

The President was of the view that the ongoing intergovernmental consultative process was the best mechanism to supervise the preparations of the Summit, and he said he intended to utilize that informal plenary process. Attached to the letter was the resolution on which the Assembly will take action next week.

At that same meeting, the Assembly will consider two draft decisions relating to arrangements on the participation and the accreditation of non-governmental organizations for its special session entitled "Women 2000: gender equality, development and peace for the twenty-first century", which will take place from 5 to 9 June here in New York. The drafts were approved, on 3 March, by the Commission on the Status of Women acting as the preparatory committee for the special session. The draft texts appear in documents A/54/L.77 and L.78, respectively.

The Assembly’s Ad Hoc Working Group on the Causes of Conflict and the Promotion of Durable Peace and Sustainable Development in Africa will hold its first session, from 13 to 17 March, commencing with a general exchange of views. That Group was set up to monitor the implementation of recommendations contained in reports of the Secretary-General and the Economic and Social Council.

At an organizational meeting earlier this week, on 7 March, Assembly President Theo-Ben Gurirab told the Working Group that there was need for a focus, speed and resource mobilization worldwide for implementing the Secretary-General’s recommendations, and he believed the Group would best serve the purpose by concentrating on four topics: poverty eradication, the refugee crisis, debt cancellation and financing for development. The imperative need to treat the political and economic dimensions of the report underscored the point that peace and development are closely linked and must be tackled together, he said. In addition to appointing the Ambassadors of Singapore and Spain [Kishore Mahbubani and Inocencio Arias] as Vice-Chairmen, the President stated his intention to involve the following players closely in the work of the Bureau: the representative of the current Chairman of the Organization of African Unity, the current Chairmen of the African Group, the Non-Aligned Movement, the "Group of 77" and China, and representatives of donor countries and organizations. The provisional agenda for the session is in document A/AC.258/1.

The Assembly’s Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) begins a three-week session on Monday 13 March. Among the items before the resumed session will be the scale of assessments for apportioning the expenses of the United Nations (item 125). The Committee is called upon to agree on the elements of the methodology that will be used to prepare future scales of assessments for the regular budget, and to make recommendations to the Committee on Contributions when it meets in June. The current report of the Contributions Committee appears in document A/54/11. The Fifth Committee will consider reports on human resources management (item 164) and various reports of the Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS).

With regard to peacekeeping operations, the Committee will take up the newly allocated item on the financing of the United Nations Organization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (A/54/237). It will also consider the performance report on the financing of the United Nations Mission in East Timor (UNAMET) for the period from 5 May to 30 November 1999 (A/54/775) and the financing of the United Nations Transitional Administration in East Timor (UNTAET) (A/54/769). Those two documents will be issued on 17 March. Documents A/C.5/54/L.40 and L.41 deal with the status of preparedness of documentation and the organization of work, respectively.

In the absence of President Gurirab, who is on an official visit to Singapore and Japan, the Vice-President from Iceland, Ambassador Thorsteinn Ingolfsson, will preside over the plenary.

Question: When will the general debate of the fifty-fifth session begin, and is there a list of speakers for the plenary debate of the Millennium Summit?

Answer: I will find out the answers and get back to you.

The Spokeswoman subsequently announced that the general debate of the fifty-fifth session will commence on Tuesday, 12 September, and will continue for two weeks, probably including Saturdays. On Monday, 11 September, the Assembly will meet to consider the report of the General Committee, which will probably have to meet in parallel with the Summit to consider the organization of the work of the regular session and the allocation of agenda items.

With regard to the list of speakers for the Millennium Summit, no decision has been taken as yet, and there is a proposal for a lottery to determine the order of speakers.