The President of the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) provided an update on how the ECOSOC Bureau is implementing a recent decision on strengthening the Council. Speaking during a joint briefing with the UN General Assembly (UNGA) President on plans and priorities for 2022, he also cited upcoming events related to recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic.

The update followed a briefing by UNGA President Abdulla Shahid on 19 January on his priorities for the remainder of the 76th Assembly session. Shahid stressed the importance of ensuring vaccines for all, prioritizing the communities most severely affected (often found in LDCs, LLDCs, and SIDS), advancing the SDGs and reflecting on climate and biodiversity ambitions with a “Moment for Nature” in July 2022, and ensuring gender equality.

Addressing delegations in the UNGA Hall on 20 January 2022, ECOSOC President Collen Kelapile said the ECOSOC Bureau is implementing the UNGA’s June 2021 decisions on strengthening ECOSOC, which called for a new Coordination Segment and a strengthened Partnership Forum as part of the yearly ECOSOC cycle of meetings. These two events will guide the Council’s work in the lead-up to the HLPF in July 2022, Kelapile said.

The Partnership Forum and Coordination Segment are two of 22 subsidiary bodies of ECOSOC that will convene in 2022. In April 2022, ECOSOC with convene a Youth Forum, and Kelapile said its outcomes could contribute both to the HLPF and to the Education Summit proposed by the UN Secretary-General as part of ‘Our Common Agenda.’

At the July 2022 session of the UN High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development (HLPF), Kelapile said, in-depth reviews of SDG 14 (life below water) and SDG 15 (life on land) have the potential to strengthen action around climate, the ocean, and biodiversity, feeding into the UNGA President’s planned high-level ‘Moment for Nature.’

An imminent stage of preparations for this year’s HLPF is for UN Member States to negotiate the ministerial declaration. Kelapile said the process would be led by co-facilitators he would announce soon.

Regarding the New Urban Agenda, Kelapile noted that both ECOSOC meeting and UNGA will hold meetings to discuss implementation of the Agenda. Shahid added that the preparations for UNGA’s high-level meeting on the New Urban Agenda, convening on 28 April, have begun on the part of the Advisory Committee on Sustainable Urbanization.

On the ‘Our Common Agenda’ report and proposed actions, Kelapile underlined the proposal for a Biennial Summit between the Group of 20, ECOSOC, the UN Secretary-General and the international financial institutions. And he said proposed new summits should be complementary with already-mandated meetings of the UNGA, ECOSOC and the HLPF. For example, he noted that in 2023, UNGA will convene an SDG Summit and Our Common Agenda proposes a Summit of the Future in the same year. UN Member States’ consultations on OCA begin on 10 February.

Finally, Kelapile stressed the importance of ensuring equal access to COVID-19 vaccines and financial resources for recovery. He called for breaking through the “glass ceiling” for international cooperation that was highlighted by the global response to the Omicron variant of the virus.

ECOSOC is mandated with promoting international cooperation on economic, social, cultural, educational, health and related issues. The newly launched Coordination Segment addresses the work of the UN system and its subsidiary bodies and aims to ensure they contribute fully to the decade of action and delivery for sustainable development and the global response to the COVID-19 pandemic. ECOSOC also oversees bodies in economic, social, cultural, educational, health and related fields including the Council’s subsidiary bodies, which comprise regional commissions, functional commissions and expert bodies. The Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues and the UN Forum on Forests (UNFF) are subsidiary bodies of ECOSOC, as is the Committee on NGOs, which grants consultative status to Non-Governmental Organizations. [ECOSOC calendar] [Recording of joint briefing] [ECOSOC Overview][ECOSOC website]