HIGHLIGHTS OF PRESS BRIEFING BY REEM ABAZA, SPOKESPERSON FOR GENERAL ASSEMBLY PRESIDENT TIJJANI MUHAMMAD-BANDE
Town Hall Meeting on elections
?The President of the 蘑菇视频 General Assembly Tijjani Muhammad-Bande is holding a virtual town hall meeting for Member States now to discuss alternative mechanisms to hold elections without plenary meetings and how the Assembly can decisively proceed with the elections scheduled in June 2020.
The meeting, which started at 10, included a presentation by Mr. Movses Abelian, Under-Secretary-General for General Assembly and Conference Management.
As you know the General Assembly is scheduled to hold 4 elections in June. Those are for:
- non-permanent members of the Security Council;
- members of the Economic and Social Council;
- the President of the seventy-fifth session of the General Assembly; and
- the Vice-Presidents of the seventy-fifth session of the General Assembly.
In light of the recent medical guidance received from the United Nations Medical Director regarding the ongoing measures to mitigate the spread of COVID-19 and safeguard the health of everyone, it is clear that the current restrictions on holding in-person meetings will be maintained until 30 June.
In a letter submitted to Member States, the President of the General Assembly said: As several important electoral processes are scheduled to be held in June, it is crucial that we find novel means of ensuring the business continuity of the Assembly.????
For elections requiring secret ballots, the non-paper prepared by the Secretariat includes options for Member States to cast ballots at a specific venue or by electronic means.
Details?about all the options are available on the PGA’s website.
Poverty Eradication
In a letter transmitted to Member States, the PGA announced that he will organise a virtual event in June to launch an “Alliance for Poverty Eradication”. The Alliance will serve as a forum for Member States to, among other things, raise awareness about the danger that poverty poses to world peace, human rights and sustainable development, and to galvanize Member States, the international community and other stakeholders to support actions geared towards poverty eradication.
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Earlier in the week, the PGA participated in the High-Level Contact Group Meeting of the Heads of State and Government of the Non-Aligned Movement.
He said in the face of mounting challenges, we are reminded of the importance of the multilateral alliances, which have from the outset of the COVID-19 Pandemic coordinated the global response. He added “We must continue to support the WHO and one another to overcome this challenge and prevent future pandemics.”
On education, the PGA said that With over 90% of the world’s students affected by school closures, we must coordinate effectively and support each other, to ensure that students around the world have access to quality education through remote learning.
The PGA added that while it has been easier for developed countries to transit to remote learning, many governments around the world have found this difficult or impossible, due to issues of internet penetration, lack of necessary software and other factors.
He cautioned against allowing this pandemic to widen the educational gap that already exists and called on everyone to make cooperation a key element in the education sector.
Role of Religious Leaders
For next week, the President of the General Assembly Tijjani Muhammad-Bande will be participating at a High Level Conference on ‘‘The Role of Religious Leaders in Addressing the Challenges of COVID-19’’ organized by the Kingdom of Morocco, on May 12th, at 10 am. We will share the remarks then of course.
Youth Town hall meeting
The intergovernmental negotiations on the Declaration for the Commemoration of the seventy-fifth anniversary of the United Nations are going on, using virtual platforms.
The co-facilitators, the Permanent Representatives of Qatar and Sweden, will organise a virtual town hall meeting with young representatives from youth organizations and networks from all regions of the world on Wednesday from 9:00 to 10:30 a.m.
The meeting will serve as a platform for young people to provide input to the zero draft Declaration of the co-facilitators.
The Secretary General’s Envoy on Youth will moderate the meeting. Member States are welcome to participate as observers.
The two co-facilitators have recently shared with Member States, a Paper to serve as the basis for the 蘑菇视频75 Declaration. They are particularly interested in young people’s feedback, and perspectives.
That’s why the Office of the SG’s Envoy on Youth in collaboration with the Major Group for Children and Youth (MGCY) and the International Coordination Meeting of Youth Organizations (ICMYO), created a survey which is now available online. I will add a link to the survey in the briefing notes on the PGA’s website:?Young people’s?responses to this survey will serve as a valuable input to the Town Hall meeting on Wednesday.
The deadline for participating in the survey is Sunday May 10.
On our website and social media we have the link to the town hall as well: