UN Population Division, Department of Economic and Social Affairs,
with support from the UN Population Fund (UNFPA)
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| UN Population Division, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, with support from the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) |
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ECOSOC Extends PrepCom III and Recommends New Status PrepCom III, the third and final session of the Preparatory Committee for the International Conference on Population and Development, 1994, has been extended by one week, and will run from 4-22 April 1994, following the adoption of a resolution by the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) at its recently concluded 1993 session in Geneva. (The full text of the resolution appears on page 2.) PrepCom 111 will be held at United Nations headquarters in New York. The Preparatory Committee's official status is also likely to change as a result of ECOSOC resolution 1993/76, adopted 30 July 1993. The Council resolution recommends that the ICPD Preparatory Committee be made a subsidiary body of the United Nations General Assembly, a change from its present status as a subsidiary of ECOSOC. The General Assembly will make a final decision on the ECOSOC proposal at its 48th session this fall. The anticipated change in status will not affect NGO accreditation to the Conference. At the Geneva session, ECOSOC also adopted without change three draft decisions taken by PrepCom 11, held in New York 10-21 May 1993. The Council requested the Conference Secretary-General, in preparing the draft recommendations of the Conference, to be guided by the views expressed by delegates and participants at PrepCom 11, and to take into account the Chairman's summary of the debate on this topic. It also agreed that associate members of the regional commissions may take part, as observers, in the Conference and its preparatory process; as a result, fifteen associate members of the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) and the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) will be able to participate. Finally, the Council adopted the report of PrepCom 11 and the provisional agenda for PrepCom 111. Annotated Outline and Final Draft Requested Included in the ECOSOC resolution is a request that the ICPD Secretary-General, Dr. Nafis Sadik, provide an annotated outline of the final Conference document for consideration at this year's General Assembly session. This will be annexed to the ICPD progress report and is expected to be available by early October. Present indications are that the General Assembly's Second Committee will take up the ICPD item by the second half of October. During the debate, delegations are expected to further elaborate their perspectives on the final document. Recognizing that PrepCom 111 participants will need to prepare for that meeting well in advance, the ECOSOC resolution also requests the ICPD Secretary-General to have the first draft of the final Conference document ready by February 1994. The ICPD Secretariat is hard at work to ensure that this deadline is met. Pre-Conference Consultations Approved While the Cairo Conference will open officially on 5 September 1994, ECOSOC has approved two days of pre-conference consultations on 3 and 4 September 1994, to allow for the election of the Conference Bureau and to finalize the agenda and work procedures. Such consultations before formal sessions are now usual, and often provide useful opportunities to tie down some of the inevitable loose ends in the Conference document.