Second Committee Begins Seventieth Session, Approving Organization of Work

The Second Committee (Economic and Financial) of the United Nations General Assembly set forth its organization of work for the seventieth session this afternoon, taking up the mandate of predictability and transparency laid out in the recent Addis Ababa Accord.

Thanking the outgoing Committee Bureau, Committee Chair Andrej Logar (Slovenia) welcomed its new members:  Vice-Chairpersons Enrique Carrillo Gómez (Paraguay), Purnomo Ahmad Chandra (Indonesia) and Reinhard Krapp (Germany) and Rapporteur Chantal Uwizera (Rwanda).  He then explained the division of their responsibilities.

Mr. Logar emphasized the Committee’s effective and efficient operation, which included a commitment to start all meetings on time, strict adherence to speaker time limits and a vow to move to the end of the list any delegation not in the room when it was their turn to speak.  Discipline and full use of time available for informal discussion of agenda items would aid in those efforts.

Calling members’ attention to the organization of work (document A/C.2/70/L.1), Mr. Logar urged delegates interested in developing draft resolutions and convening informal consultations to begin as soon as possible, lest the Committee “slip back into past practice, which had become the basis of criticism”.  The Committee adopted the organization of work and a note by the Secretariat on the status of documentation for the session (document A/C.2/70/L.1/Add.1) by consensus.

The Committee, he said, would still devote time to four side events closely linked to the agenda, focusing on the following topics:  achieving of substantive equality for women; transitioning from an informal to a formal economy; crisis mitigation for least developed countries; and drought management in water-scarce countries.

The Committee Chair also announced two joint meetings of the Economic and Social Council and the Second Committee, addressing illicit financial flows and development financing in Africa and taxation issues.

Ecuador’s representative, speaking for the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), expressed concern about the proposed side events and the lack of attention to the specific needs of his region.  He called for the addition of transparent measurements of progress on sustainable development that went beyond per capita income and recognized poverty in all its forms.  He anticipated a revision of the current list of proposed events to reflect those needs.

“Reviewing the agenda of our Committee is now urgent, timely and appropriate,” Mr. Logar said.  “The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, transformative in scope and ambition, will be adopted later this week.  We must ensure that the focus of our work is in line with the requirements for the integrated follow-up and implementation of the Agenda.”

The Committee must conclude its work by 25 November, not least because any draft proposals with financial implications required submission to the Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) by 1 December.  He noted that the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference would take place in Paris from 30 November to 11 December, which impacted the availability of Committee members and put time constraints on their work.

Finally, Mr. Logar asked the Committee to consider three key issues in light of the post-2015 agenda before reconvening:  making sustainable development an overarching framework of the agenda instead of one cluster; reorganizing all other clusters under a sustainable development framework; and considering the implications for those changes on resolutions adopted by the Committee.  He concluded by requesting “bold and creative ideas” on refocusing the agenda to better address “the objectives of people, planet, prosperity and partnership”.

The Second Committee will meet again on 7 October at 10 a.m. to begin its substantive work.