49th plenary meeting

28 July 1982

Revitalization of the Economic and Social Council

The Economic and Social Council,

Recalling General Assembly resolutions 3201 (S-VI) and 3202 (S-VI) of 1 May 1974, containing the Declaration and the Programme of Action on the Establishment of a New International Economic Order, 3281 (XXIX) of 12 December 1974, containing the Charter of Economic Rights and Duties of States and 3362 (S-VII) of 16 September 1975, on development and international economic co-operation,

Recalling also General Assembly resolution 35/56 of 5 December 1980, containing the International Development Strategy for the Third United Nations Development Decade,

Recalling further General Assembly resolution 32/197 of 20 December 1977, on the restructuring of the economic and social sectors of the United Nations system,

Recalling Council resolutions 1156 (XLI) of 5 August 1966, 1622 (LI) of 30 July 1971, 1623 (LI) of 30 July 1971, 1768 (LIV) of 18 May 1973 and 1981/83 of 24 July 1981,

Fully aware of the urgent need to revitalize the Council in order to enable it, under the authority of the General Assembly, to exercise effectively its functions and powers as set out in the Charter of the United Nations, a well as in relevant resolutions of the General Assembly and the Council,

Reaffirming its desire to continue the process of the restructuring of the economic and social sectors of the United Nations system, and recognizing that the revitalization of the Council requires its continuous attention,

Having considered the note by the Secretary-General on the revitalization of the Economic and Social Council,

Having heard statements by the President of the Economic and Social Council and by Member States on the revitalization of the Council as the principal organ of the United Nations under the Charter in the economic and social fields,

1. Decides to adopt, without prejudice to future decisions which the General Assembly or the Council may wish to take, the following measures concerning its programme and organization of work, as well as documentation and calendar of meetings;

(a) In formulating its biennial programme of work, the Council shall identify issues which will require its priority consideration; the Council shall organize its work in such a manner as to enable it to focus its attention on a limited number of carefully selected major policy issues, to be studied in depth with a view to elaborating concrete action-oriented recommendations; the Council shall, in this context, review at each of its regular sessions the programme of work for its ensuing session; it shall also decide on the manner in which it would consider those issues, including the possibility of devoting parts of its sessions to specific subjects or of convening, if necessary, special sessions, in accordance with rule 4 of its rules of procedure, to deal with specific subjects or issues;

(b) The Council shall assist in the preparation of the work of the General Assembly in the economic, social and related fields through drawing up suggestions for consideration by the Assembly, regarding the latter's documentation and organization of work, as well as of recommendations for action by the Assembly on substantive issues;

(c) The Council shall consolidate similar or related issues under a single agenda item in order to consider and to take action on them in an integrated manner;

(d) As part of its annual general discussion of international economic and social policy, including regional and sectoral developments, the Council may formulate appropriate conclusions and recommendations thereon addressed to the General Assembly, States Members of the United Nations and organs, organizations and bodies of the United Nations system concerned;

(e) The Council shall examine the relevant sections of the proposed medium-term plan and proposed programme budget of the United Nations on the basis of the recommendations of the Committee for Programme and Co-ordination on the matter and shall submit its recommendations thereon to the General Assembly;

(f) The Council shall enhance its role in co-ordinating the activities of the United Nations system in the economic and social sectors; in this context, it shall consider, on a cross-sectoral basis, the activities and programmes of the organs, organizations and bodies of the United Nations system in order to ensure that the work programmes of the United Nations and its agencies are compatible and mutually complementary and shall recommend to the General Assembly relative priorities for activities of the United Nations system in the economic and social fields; to that end, beginning at its second regular session of 1983, the Council shall review, every six years, selected major issues in the proposed medium-term plans of the organizations of the United Nations system;

(g) The Council shall, in accordance with General Assembly resolution 32/197, carry out comprehensive policy reviews of operational activities throughout the United Nations system, bearing in mind the need for balance, compatibility and conformity with the priorities established by the General Assembly for the system as a whole; the Council shall undertake such a review in 1983 and every three years thereafter and shall submit its recommendations to the General Assembly in order to assist and prepare the Assembly for its work in this regard, in accordance with General Assembly resolution 35/81 of 5 December 1980;

(h) The Council shall henceforth also concentrate on the policy review and co-ordination of activities in the area of regional co-operation, particularly in respect of issues of common interest to all regions and matters relating to interregional co-operation;

(i) The Council shall review at each organizational session, in the context of its consideration of its draft basic programme of work, all of its recurrent and other documentation requested under an existing legislative authority to determine whether any document has become redundant, has lost its usefulness or could be issued at less frequent intervals; the Secretary-General is requested to submit his recommendations in this regard to the Council, together with the draft basic programme of work;

(j) All of the subsidiary bodies of the Council are urged to exercise utmost restraint in making requests of the Secretary-General for new reports and studies and to fully implement the provisions of the decisions of the Council and of the General Assembly with respect to control and limitation of documentation;

(k) The Council shall henceforth begin its first regular session on the first Tuesday of May every year;

(l) The Secretary-General is requested, in proposing future draft calendars of conferences, to ensure that meetings of subsidiary bodies of the Council would, to the extent possible, end at least eight weeks before the Council session at which their reports are to be considered; the Committee on Conferences is also requested to act accordingly;

(m) The Council shall, to the maximum extent possible, refrain from establishing new subsidiary bodies; it shall make every effort to meet the need for any new bodies by holding sessions as envisaged in paragraph l (a) above;

2. Endorses the recommendations of the Secretary-General as contained in the annex to the present resolution, and recommends to the General Assembly that it should also endorse the recommendations;

3. Decides to request the President of the Economic and Social Council to continue consultations with Member States on other questions relating to all aspects of the implementation of section II of the annex to General Assembly resolution 32/197 and to report all results thereon to the Council in 1983.

ANNEX

Recommendations of the Secretary-General concerning the revitalization of the Economic and Social Council

1. The Council, at each of its annual organizational sessions, should decide on ways to consider all the reports which have been requested for submission to it and/or its subsidiary machinery. In principle, all reports on subjects which are within the purview of an established subsidiary body should, in the first instance, be submitted to that body. The subsidiary body should include in a separate chapter in its report to the Council and/or Assembly, specific recommendations on issues requiring action by the Council and/or Assembly. Such recommendations should, whenever appropriate, be in the form of draft resolutions and/or decisions for action by the Council and/or the General Assembly.

2. As a general rule, all subsidiary bodies of the Council and the General Assembly should refrain from requesting the Secretary-General to submit reports directly to the Council and/or the Assembly. They should also refrain to the extent possible from transmitting reports submitted to them for consideration to the Council and/or the Assembly.

3. Accordingly, on all subjects covered by subsidiary bodies, the Council should have before it, as a general rule, only the report of that subsidiary body. In the consideration of these reports, the Council should, in order to avoid repetitious debates, confine its consideration as far as possible to matters which require its guidance and decisions. The same procedure should also apply to the consideration of reports of subsidiary bodies of the Assembly, which are transmitted through the Council.

4. The documentation and programme of work of the subsidiary bodies of the Council and the General Assembly should also be streamlined in order to enable them to perform effectively the functions entrusted to them. The Council and the Assembly should continue to review, in accordance with Council resolution 1979/41 of 10 May 1979 and General Assembly resolution 34/50 of 23 November 1979, the provisional agenda for their subsidiary bodies, together with the list of requested documentation in order, inter alia, to establish greater consistency in the over-all request for documentation and its orderly consideration at the intergovernmental level, taking fully into account the medium-term plan and the programme budget. In doing so, the Council and the Assembly should also take into account the need for consolidation of items and documentation for their subsidiary machinery.

5. In order to enable the Council and the General Assembly to have the necessary time to prepare for their work, the General Assembly, as a general rule, should not request reports for submission to the first regular session of the Council the following year. The Council, likewise, should refrain from requesting reports at its first regular session for submission to its second regular session.

6. Reports on progress of work for the information of the Council or the Assembly should, as a general rule, be presented orally rather than in written form.