29 May 1985

23rd plenary meeting

Progress of work of the Commission for Social Development

The Economic and Social Council,

Recalling the terms of reference of the Commission for Social Development set forth in Economic and Social Council resolutions 10 (II) of 21 June 1946, 830 J (XXXII) of 2 August 1961 and 1139 (XLI) of 29 July 1966,

Reaffirming the central role of the Commission for Social Development within the United Nations in considering matters relating to social development,

Reaffirming that, within the United Nations system, the Centre for Social Development and Humanitarian Affairs of the Department of International Economic and Social Affairs of the United Nations Secretariat has a major role to play in matters relevant to social development,

Recognizing the importance for the Commission for Social Development of exchanges of information on activities with other functional commissions of the Economic and Social Council with mandates in the social development sector, in particular the Commission on the Status of Women and the Population Commission,

Concerned that the Commission should have available to it sufficient information on social development activities within the United Nations system to enable it to make an appropriate contribution towards the fulfilment of overall development objectives, and to provide appropriate direction to the Centre for Social Development and Humanitarian Affairs with respect to its work in the field of social development,

Recalling General Assembly resolutions 36/228 A and B of 18 December 1981, in which guidelines were laid down by which agencies in the United Nations system were to create mechanisms for the evaluation of their work, and in which the Secretary-General was requested to strengthen the United Nations evaluation system through a series of five separate actions, including self-evaluation,

Recognizing that programmes in the field of social development are formulated within the framework of the medium-term plan, and of the biennial budgets established in accordance with that plan,

1. Requests the Secretary-General to make available to the Commission for Social Development at future sessions such details as may be available of the proposed programme of work for the forthcoming biennium so as to allow the Commission to make recommendations on matters pertaining to the social sector to the appropriate intergovernmental bodies;

2. Encourages the Secretary-General to make available to the Economic and Social Council information on areas of complementarity among the work programmes of the Commission for Social Development, the Commission on the Status of Women, the Population Commission and other relevant bodies, and to optimize the flow of information on social development within the United Nations system;

3. Recommends that the Centre for Social Development and Humanitarian Affairs, in preparing its overview reports for the Commission for Social Development, should draw on information relating to the activities of the specialized agencies in the social development field and such other information as it considers appropriate;

4. Requests the Committee for Programme and Co-ordination to review the current evaluation timetable and to study the possibility of conducting an in-depth evaluation of the effectiveness, relevance and impact of United Nations social development activities, with a view to submitting it to the Commission for Social Development.