55th session of the
General Assembly
Item 182: Follow-up to the outcome of the Millennium Summit
meeting with the Coordinators of the upcoming events
22 February
2001
As part of the President's follow up activities on the implementation of the
Summit Declaration and to establish how best to make use of upcoming events
within the United Nations system in the implementation of the Summit the office
of the Assembly President arranged the 4th meeting with the coordinators of
these events on February 22, 2001. The representatives of the respective secretariat
departments/units were also invited.
The meeting focused on three issues: progress in preparations and updates on
issues relating to civil society involvement and reporting and feed back from
the events and conferences to the General Assembly.
General information on how the preparations are progressing
Participants were invited to assess whether and how well the different preparation
processes have been understood and used as part of the implementation of the
Summit. At the outset it was noted that in some cases the substantive negotiations
have not yet progressed sufficiently to make this assessment.
All in all the different processes are perceived to and do in practice act as
implementation tools of the Summit.
LDC-III:
Poverty eradication will be the central theme in this conference. Progress was
quite slow in the last preparatory meeting, but hopefully the inter-sessional
meetings and the next preparatory meeting will make good progress.
Istanbul + 5 (Habitat):
Preparatory process going on in Nairobi, briefing will be submitted later directly
to the President.
HIV/AIDS Special Session:
The focus has been so far on the organisational issues. But he topic of HIV/AIDS
is cross cutting and will be a very important part of the follow up to the Summit.
Small Arms Conference:
The next preparatory meeting in March will discuss also the issues that are
of relevance in the Summit follow up based on the Chairman's draft on action
plan.
Racism conference:
The conference has many thematic linkages to the outcome of the Summit and is
thus very relevant in the follow up. The regional preparatory meetings have
been held. Next inter-sessional meeting is in March and the President was invited
to send a letter to remind the session of the Summit follow-up aspect.
Special Session on Children:
The Summit has been a key input for the Special Session on Children preparations.
The aim is to have an overarching policy guidance that will cover many cross
sectoral issues also dealt in the Summit.
World Food Summit+5:
This event aims to play a co-ordinating role in the follow up to the Summit.
Preparatoty structure is led by the Committee of the World Food Security.
Financing for development:
There is a strong reference and link to the Summit in this process. It is particularly
important to remind ourselves of the fact that the Heads of States made the
commitments in September, since finance issues are not dealt solely by the Foreign
Ministries.
The President's office informed participants about the President's participation
in several events and conferences in order to underline the role these events
play in the implementation process. An updated calendar of the up coming events
and conferences is enclosed for information purposes (annex).
Civil society
The Office of the President drew attention to the fact that the issue was put
on the agenda of the meeting for two main reasons: it is a common procedural
point of all upcoming events, so synergies could be developed to rationalize
negotiations that often take a huge part of the substantial negotiations. Furthermore
strengthening the contribution of civil society was part of the Summit declaration,
which again the President is keen to follow up.
It was pointed out that civil society participation is crucial in order to make
these events a success. This is also part of the Summit follow up. Participants
stressed that there are political sensitivities concerning the participation
arrangements. It was noted that more attention should be paid to the general
question of organising civil society participation.
Participants were invited once again to send information on the process, including
preparations of any non-papers and time tables as well as which meetings would
discuss this issue to General Assembly secretariat in order to have a focal
point for information on the civil society involvement. In this way information
will be available to all coordinators from the office of Mr. Perfiliev/GA Affairs.
Reporting back to the General Assembly
In the Resolution 162/55 various events and conferences are requested to report
to the Assembly on how they will contribute to the implementation of the Millennium
Declaration. At the last meeting it was suggested that a separate section on
the Summit follow-up be included in the respective reports of these events and
conferences.
Now it was noted that maybe we should try to be more ambitious, and try to see
whether through co-operation of all relevant secretariat entities we could provide
the Member States with a consolidated account of all events that will take place
this year. This should be done without creating an additional burden/reporting
channel. Participants were invited to consider the reporting modalities further
and present ideas or thoughts at the next meeting on how the reporting back
to the Assembly could be done in practice, including by using electronic reporting,
oral reports or similar processes.
The President's office briefed the participants also about the ongoing efforts
within the secretariat concerning the preparations of the road map.
Annex
Millennium Summit Follow-up
Dates for Up-Coming Events/Conferences and their Preparatory Processes
March
Special Session of the General Assembly on Review of the Problem of Human
Immunodeficiency Virus/Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome in All Its Aspects;
· Open-ended informal consultations of the Plenary; New York
World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related
Intolerance;
· Open-Ended Inter-sessional Working Group; Geneva (6-9)
Special Session of the General Assembly on Review of the Problem of Human Immunodeficiency
Virus/Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome in All Its Aspects;
· Open-ended Informals of the Plenary; New York (13)
United Nations Conference on the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons
in All Its Aspects;
· 3rd Prepcom; New York (19-30)
April
Third United Nations Conference on Least Developed Countries (LDC-III);
· 3rd Prepcom; New York (2-6)
Special Session of the General Assembly on Review of the Problem of Human Immunodeficiency
Virus/Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome in All Its Aspects;
· Open-ended Informal Consultations of the Plenary; New York (23-27)
May
High Level International Intergovernmental Consideration of Financing for
Development;
· 3rd Prepcom; New York (2-8)
Third United Nations Conference on Least Developed Countries, (LDC III);
· Brussels (14-20)
Special Session of the General Assembly on Review of the Problem of Human Immunodeficiency
Virus/Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome in All Its Aspects;
· Open-ended informals of the Plenary; New York (21-25)
Special Session of the General Assembly on Review of the Problem of Human Immunodeficiency
Virus/Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome in All Its Aspects;
· Open-ended Informal Consultations; New York (29)
Special Session of the General Assembly on Review of the Problem of Human Immunodeficiency
Virus/Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome in All Its Aspects;
· Plenary; New York (31)
Ten-Year Review of the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development
(RIO+10);
· 1st Prepcom, organizational session
World Food Summit + 5Committee on World Food Security
May-June
World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related
Intolerance;
· 2nd Prepcom; Geneva (May 21- June 1)
June
Special Session of the General Assembly for an overall Review and Appraisal
of the Implementation of the Outcome of the United Nations Conference on Human
Settlements (Istanbul +5);
· New York (6-8)
Special Session of the General Assembly on Children;
· 3rd Substantive Session, New York (11-15)
Special Session of the General Assembly on Review of the Problem of Human
Immunodeficiency Virus/Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome in All Its Aspects;
· New York (25-27)
World Food Summit + 5;
FAO Council
July
July UN Conference on the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons
in All Its Aspects;
· New York (9-20)
August-September
World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related
Intolerance;
· Durban, South Africa (Aug. 31- Sep. 7)
56th SESSION OF THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY
11 September 2001 - 10 September 2002
September
Special Session of the General Assembly on Children
· New York (19-21)
November
FAO Congress
· Rome (2-13)
Food Summit + 5 (FAO)
· Rome (13-17)
January
High Level International Intergovernmental Consideration of Financing
for DevelopmentPrepcom (tentative)
FirstQuarter of year 2002
High Level International Intergovernmental Consideration of Financing for Development
January-April
World Summit on Sustainable Development (RIO+10);
· Prepcoms to be decided
May
World Summit on Sustainable Development (RIO+10);
· Ministerial Prepcom, Jakarta, Indonesia
TBD
World Summit on Sustainable Development (RIO+10);
· Johannesburg, South Africa