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29 JUNE 2000

With me today is Mr. Nitin Desai, the Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs, who is here to speak to you.

We are in day four of the General Assembly’s twenty-fourth Special Session on Social Development.  By the end of Wednesday, a total of 100 delegations had addressed the Assembly on implementing the Copenhagen Declaration and Programme of Action adopted at the 1995 World Summit for Social Development.  Today’s list of 37 speakers includes the President of Nigeria and the Prime Minister of Senegal.

If President Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria speaks this morning, the Assembly will have heard, so far, 8 Heads of State, 7 Vice-Presidents and 10 Heads of Government.

The Chairman of the Ad Hoc Committee of the Whole, Mr. Cristian Maquieira (Chile), said this morning that this was “the beginning of the endgame”.  The atmosphere was good and delegates were working hard.  He expected agreement on the full text by tomorrow.

Mr. Maquieira chairs Working Group I, which has scheduled four meetings for today, through 2 a.m., to finalize commitments 1, 7, 8 and 9, commitment 1 being the most contentious.  Working Group II, chaired by Mr. Koos Richelle (Netherlands) is holding three meetings to deal with commitments 2, 3, 4, 6 and 10.  Working Group III, chaired by Mr. Bagher Asadi (Iran), is meeting tonight to deliberate on outstanding paragraphs of the political declaration.  The facilitators are holding separate meetings to resolve differences relating to paragraphs 7, 9, 39 and 39 ter, 80, 82 and 82 bis.

As of 11 p.m. Wednesday, 73 per cent of the 162 paragraphs of the outcome document had been cleared, leaving 55 paragraphs, or 34 per cent, bracketed or partly bracketed.
 
Besides presiding over today’s plenary meetings, the President of the General Assembly, Dr. Theo-Ben Gurirab, will attend a buffet dinner this evening, hosted by the Swiss Confederation, and the Republic, County and City of Geneva at the Grand Theatre.
 
I would like to remind journalists of the two panel discussions taking place today in Room XIX (19) in the E Building, sponsored by the Chairman of the Ad Hoc Committee.   As we speak, Mr. Juan Somavia, Director-General of the International Labour Organization, is chairing a panel entitled “Promotion of Full Employment”.  The seven panelists are: Mr. Juan Aparicio, Minister of Labour and Social Affairs of Spain; Ms. Carol Bellamy, Executive Director of UNICEF; Ethel Blondin-Andrew, Secretary of State for Children and Youth of Canada; Irena Boruta, Deputy Minister of Labour and Social Policy of Poland; Mirai Chatterjee, former General Secretary, Self-Employed Women’s Association of India; Advocate Dikgang Moseneke, Chairman of Telkom, in South Africa; and Fackson Shamenda, President of the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions of Zambia.

From 3 p.m. to 6 p.m., Ms. Rima Khalaf, former Deputy Prime Minister of Jordan, will chair a panel entitled “Social Integration: Basic Social Services for All”.  The six panelists are: Ms. Emma Bonino of Italy, MEP and former EU Commissioner for Humanitarian Affairs; Dr. Gro Harlem Brundtland, Director-General of the World Health Organization; Guy Hascoet, Secretaire d’Etat a l’Economie Solidaire of France; Koichiro Matsuura, Director-General of UNESCO; Aminata Traore, former Minister of Culture and Tourism of Togo; and Kevin Watkins, Senior Policy Analyst, Oxfam, UK.
 
Here are the latest numbers on participants at the Special Session:  Protocol has issued 1,597 delegates badges, but estimates that there are 4,791 delegates present; 1,972 representatives of NGOs have been registered, for a total of 2,045 (including the 73 permanent ones); and 507 badges were issued to representatives of media organizations, for an estimated total of 758 (including 251 permanent journalists).