17 December 1981

Multinational Programming and Operational Planning Centres

The General Assembly,

Recalling its resolutions 32/197 of 20 December 1977 and 33/202 of 29 January 1979 on restructuring the economic and social sectors of the United Nations system so as to make it more fully capable of dealing with problems of international economic co-operation and development in a comprehensive and effective manner,

Recalling in particular section IV of the annex to resolution 32/197 on structures for regional and interregional co-operation, through which the General Assembly designated the regional commissions, inter alia, as the main general economic and social development centres within the United Nations system for their respective regions,

Recalling further its resolution 35/64 of 5 December 1980 on special measures for the social and economic development in Africa in the 1980s,

Recalling also the Final Act of Lagos, adopted at the second extraordinary session of the Assembly of Heads of State and Government of the Organization of African Unity, held at Lagos on 28 and 29 April 1980, which called, inter alia, for the establishment of a subregional common market by 1990 as the first step towards the establishment of an African economic community by the year 2000,

Taking note of resolution 311 (XIII) adopted on 1 March 1977 by the Conference of Ministers of the Economic Commission for Africa, whereby the Conference decided to create a certain number of Multinational Programming and Operational Planning Centres at the subregional level,

Bearing in mind also that the Multinational Programming and Operational Planning Centres have become an integral part of the Economic Commission for Africa, through which the Commission effectively carries out its terms of reference not only with regard to studies, research, the organization of meetings and consultations but also with regard to its operational activities as an executing agency,

Emphasizing the importance of the activities of the Multinational Programming and Operational Planning Centres for the African countries and the need for substantial and adequate financial and human resources to sustain the activities of the Centres,

1. Calls upon the Secretary-General urgently to seek to provide extrabudgetary resources to enable all the Multinational Programming and Operational Planning Centres to carry out, in 1982 at the subregional level, their work programme in the field of general programming, research, studies and the organization of meetings;

2. Welcomes the financial support which the United Nations Development Programme has extended to the Multinational Programming and Operational Planning Centres since their inception and urges the Administrator of the Programme to continue this essential support to the operational activities of the Centres during the third programming cycle of the United Nations Development Programme, 1982-1986;

3. Calls also upon other organs, organizations and bodies of the United Nations system, as well as intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations, to render their fullest support to the activities of the Multinational Programming and Operational Planning Centres;

4. Invites the Secretary-General, in consultation with the Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme and the Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for Africa, to submit to the Economic and Social Council, at its second regular session of 1982, a report on the financing of the Multinational Programming and Operational Planning Centres on an established basis;

5. Requests the Secretary-General to submit to the General Assembly at its thirty-seventh session a report on the implementation of the present resolution.