29 july 1988

41st plenary meeting

Revitalization of the Economic and Social Council

The Economic and Social Council,

Recalling General Assembly resolutions 41/213 of 19 December 1986, 42/170 of 11 December 1987 and 42/211 of 21 December 1987, concerning the review of the efficiency of the administrative and financial functioning of the United Nations,

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

Recalling further section IV of General Assembly resolution 33/202 of 29 January 1979, concerning the role of the Director-General for Development and International Economic Co-operation,

Recalling Economic and Social Council resolutions 1458 (XLVII) of 8 August 1969 and 1982/50 of 28 July 1982,

Recognizing that the process of reforming the economic and social sectors of the United Nations aims at contributing to the full implementation of General Assembly resolution 41/213 and requires continued attention,

Aware that the work of the Economic and Social Council should be enhanced and streamlined in order to make the United Nations system more responsive to the challenges of development, in particular of developing countries, and to the needs of Member States in the coming years,

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 and relevant resolutions of the General Assembly and the 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. Affirms that the Economic and Social Council should make an important contribution to the major issues and concerns facing the international community, in particular, the economic and social development of developing countries;

2. Decides to adopt the following measures aimed at revitalizing the Council, improving its functioning and enabling it to exercise effectively its functions and powers as set out in Chapters IX and X of the Charter of the United Nations:

Policy formulation

(a) With a view to formulating and elaborating action-oriented recommendations:

(i) The annual general discussion of "international economic and social policy, including regional and sectoral developments" should take place during the first five working days of the second regular session and should allow enough time for a dialogue and an exchange of views between members and executive heads of the organizations of the United Nations system;

(ii) The Council should undertake annually in-depth discussions of previously identified major policy themes, to be selected on the basis of a multi-year work programme derived, inter alia, from the priorities set out in the medium-term plan of the United Nations and the work programmes of other relevant United Nations bodies;

(iii) The Council shall, as and when necessary, address urgent and emerging issues relating to acute international economic and social problems possibly as one of the themes identified in accordance with subparagraph (ii) above;

(iv) In the context of the above:

a. The executive heads of the specialized agencies or their senior representatives should participate actively in the deliberations of the Council;

b. The specialized agencies should be invited to resume submission of analytical summaries of their annual reports for the consideration of the Council;

Monitoring (b) The Council shall monitor the implementation of the overall strategies, policies and priorities established by the General Assembly in the economic, social and related fields as set out in relevant resolutions of the Assembly and the Council; it shall also consider all appropriate modalities for carrying out the recommendations of the Assembly on matters falling within the Council's competence; in this regard:

(i) The Secretary-General should circulate each year to Member States and all organizations of the United Nations system, as well as to the Council at its organizational session, a consolidated note on the decisions adopted by the General Assembly in the economic, social and related fields, highlighting matters that require action by them;

(ii) The Council shall obtain information from the specialized agencies on the steps taken to give effect to the recommendations of the General Assembly and the Council on economic, social and related matters that fall within the respective mandates and areas of competence of the agencies; such information is to be included in the analytical summaries of their annual reports;

(c) With a view to submitting appropriate recommendations to the General Assembly on the overall and programme priorities of the United Nations in the economic, social and related fields, the Council shall examine in depth the relevant chapters of the proposed medium-term plan and sections of the proposed programme budget of the United Nations in the light of the recommendations of the Committee for Programme and Co-ordination;

Operational activities (d) The Council shall recommend to the General Assembly overall priorities and policy guidelines for operational activities for development undertaken by the United Nations system; for that purpose:

(i) The Council, as part of its co-ordination functions, shall define, as and when necessary, overall priorities and specific activities for the organizations of the United Nations system, within their respective mandates, so that the operational activities for development of the United Nations system are carried out in a coherent and effective manner;

(ii) The Council shall deal, each year, with a limited number of policy co-ordination issues, including those identified in General Assembly resolution 42/196 of 11 December 1987; the executive heads of the organizations concerned should be invited to participate actively in such discussions;

(iii) Once every three years the Council shall conduct a comprehensive policy review of the operational activities for development of the United Nations system, which shall be one of its major policy themes and shall be undertaken in connection with the triennial policy review of operational activities carried out by the General Assembly;

(iv) The Council shall monitor the follow-up to its recommendations;

organizations of the United Nations system should report to the Council on progress made in the implementation of those recommendations;

Co-ordination (e) The Council shall carry out its functions of co-ordinating the activities of the United Nations system in the economic, social and related fields as an integral part of its work; to this effect:

(i) Co-ordination instruments, such as cross-organizational reports, the Joint Meetings of the Committee for Programme and Co-ordination and the Administrative Committee on Co-ordination, and reports of the Administrative Committee on Co-ordination and its subsidiary bodies, should be rationalized in order to enable the Council to carry out its co-ordination functions in an effective manner, based on the measures contained in the present resolution; the Committee for Programme and Co-ordination should assist the Council in this regard and submit specific proposals thereon to the Council at its second regular session of 1989;

(ii) The Administrative Committee on Co-ordination, through its Consultative Committee on Substantive Questions (Operational Activities), and the Joint Consultative Group on Policy should prepare suggestions to assist the Council in fulfilling its central co-ordinating role in the field of operational activities for development and should submit them to the Council at its second regular session of 1989;

(iii) The Council shall consider the activities and programmes of the organs, organizations and bodies of the United Nations system, in order to ensure, through consultation with and recommendations to the agencies, that the activities and programmes of the United Nations and its agencies are compatible and mutually complementary, and shall recommend to the General Assembly relative priorities for the activities of the United Nations system in the economic and social fields; for that purpose, cross-organizational programme analyses shall be discontinued in their present form and be replaced by brief analyses on major issues in the medium-term plan, as referred to in subparagraph (a) (ii) above, to be considered directly by the Council; immediately after the General Assembly adopts the next medium-term plan, the Secretary-General should submit to the Council draft proposals on a multi-year programme for such analyses;

(iv) In considering the question of regional co-operation, the Council shall concentrate on the policy review and co-ordination of activities, particularly with respect to issues of common interest to all regions and matters relating to interregional co-operation;

Working methods and organization of work (f) In formulating its biennial programme of work, the Council shall, to the extent possible, consolidate similar or closely related issues under a single agenda item, in order to consider and take action on them in an integrated manner; the Council shall pay particular attention to bringing the economic and the social activities of the United Nations system closer together; to this effect:

(i) In proposing future calendars of conferences, the Secretary-General should ensure that meetings of the subsidiary bodies of the Council will end at least eight weeks before the session of the Council at which their reports are to be considered; the Committee on Conferences should be requested to act accordingly;

(ii) The Council shall further continue to consider the biennialization of the sessions of its subsidiary bodies and items on its own agenda and programme of work, taking into account the need for a balance between economic and social issues;

(iii) The Secretariat shall prepare for the Council, on the basis of reports submitted by the relevant organs, organizations and bodies of the United Nations system, issue-oriented consolidated reports on economic, social and related questions that the Council will consider under the consolidated agenda items;

(iv) All reports submitted to the Council should be prefaced by an analytical executive summary that highlights the main issues addressed and the recommendations made in the report;

(v) The six-week rule for the circulation of substantive reports of the Secretariat and the eight-week rule for the annotated agenda of the Council should be strictly observed;

(vi) The Council shall report to the General Assembly on the outcome of its work in a manner that will enable the Assembly, in its Main Committees, to consider the recommendations made by the Council in an integrated manner;

(vii) The Council shall review all relevant documentation prepared for the consideration of questions in the economic, social and related fields;

(g) The Secretary-General, in the context of the implementation of General Assembly resolution 41/213, should submit to the Council, at its second regular session of 1989, proposals on the structure and composition of a separate and identifiable secretariat support structure for the Council, which would undertake the substantive functions and technical servicing that will be required to implement subparagraphs (b) (i), (b) (ii), (e) (iii) and (f) (iii) above;

(h) To achieve better and more effective co-ordination of the economic, social and related activities of the United Nations system, including operational activities for development, the Office of the Director-General for Development and International Economic Co-operation should be strengthened; in this context, the relevant provisions of General Assembly resolutions 32/197 and 33/202, including those concerning improved policy planning, should be fully implemented;

(i) In the recruitment of staff for the United Nations Secretariat in the economic and social fields, due consideration should be given to the principle of equitable geographical representation;

(j) The Third (Programme and Co-ordination) Committee of the Council shall henceforth focus on:

(i) Operational activities for development of the United Nations system and system-wide co-ordination of those activities;

(ii) Programme questions;

(iii) Co-ordination of the activities of the United Nations and the United Nations system;

(k) The Council shall elect its President and Bureau early in the calendar year, prior to the organizational session of the Council;

(l) Prior to the organizational session, the President, with the co-operation of the other members of the Bureau, should arrange for consultations with members of the Council on the draft programme of work and provisional agenda prepared by the Secretary-General and on the allocation of agenda items and make proposals thereon for consideration by the Council; the duration of the organizational session of the Council could consequently be shortened;

3. Requests the Secretary-General to submit a report to the Economic and Social Council at its second regular session of 1989 on the feasibility and comparative costs of holding at the United Nations, with the present in-sessional arrangements, one consolidated or two regular sessions of the Council;

4. Decides to include an item entitled "Revitalization of the Economic and Social Council" in the provisional agenda for its second regular session of 1989 and to consider under that item a report of the Secretary-General on progress in the implementation of the present resolution;

5. Requests the Secretary-General to report to the Economic and Social Council at its second regular session of 1989 on the progress made in the implementation of the relevant paragraphs of the present resolution and on proposals for incorporating in the biennial programme of work of the Council measures to implement the present resolution;

6. Also requests the Secretary-General, in order to enable the Council to continue discussions on how its work can be enhanced so as to make it more responsive to the challenge of development in the coming years, to submit to the Council at its second regular session of 1989 a note on:

(a) The functioning of the Council and its subsidiary bodies in relation to the relevant chapters of the medium-term plan, using the following categories: (i) policy formulation, co-ordination and monitoring; (ii) operations and implementation; (iii) technical support;

(b) The mandates of the bodies established to assist the Council in carrying out its functions, listed according to the same three categories.