Relevant Modalities for the Durban Review Conference

A/CONF.211/PC.1/2

page 5

UNITED
NATIONS / A
General Assembly / Distr.
GENERAL
A/CONF.211/PC.1/2
20 August 2007
Original: ENGLISH

DURBAN REVIEW CONFERENCE
Preparatory Committee
First organizational session
Geneva, 27 to 31 August 2007
Items 7 and 8 of the provisional agenda

RELEVANT MODALITIES FOR THE DURBAN REVIEW CONFERENCE

PREPARATORY MEETINGS AND ACTIVITIES AT THE INTERNATIONAL, REGIONAL AND NATIONAL LEVELS

Note by the Secretariat on previous review conferences

Review of follow-up to world conferences and summits in accordancewith the established practice of the General Assembly

I. FOLLOW-UP TO THE WORLD SUMMIT FOR CHILDREN

Twenty-seventh special session of the General Assembly, New York, May 2002 (seehttp://www.unicef.org/specialsession/wffc/):

·  Held 8-10 May 2002 (preceded by the Children’s Forum, 5-7 May);

·  Follow-up to the World Summit for Children, held in September 1990, New York;

·  Mandated by General Assembly resolution 51/186 of 16 December 1996;

·  The General Assembly decided to establish “an open-ended preparatory committee, alsoopen to States members of the specialized agencies, to address organizational issues, including the form, the participation of a broad range of relevant actors and theagenda, and to prepare for the outcome of the special session” (resolution 54/93 of7December 1999);

·  It also established the Preparatory Committee for the special session on children, opento all Member States and observers. The Preparatory Committee was guided by a five-member Bureau, with the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) serving as the substantive secretariat;

·  The Preparatory Committee held one organizational and three substantive sessions, several extended Bureau meetings and numerous informal consultations;

·  Seven panel discussions were held during the preparatory process;

·  Five main regional meetings took place, in Beijing, Berlin, Cairo, Kathmandu and Kingston. They were organized jointly with UNICEF. They produced their own declarations;

·  Regional and sub-regional preparatory processes (meetings) took place;

·  Approximately 70 Heads of State or Government attended the session;

·  Some 7,000 participants attended the special session, including over 1,000 NGOs, as well as hundreds of children and young people.

II. IMPLEMENTATION OF THE OUTCOME OF THE CONFERENCEON HUMAN SETTLEMENTS (HABITAT II)

Twenty-fifth special session of the General Assembly, New York, June 2001 (seehttp://www.un.org/ga/habitat/):

·  Held 6-8 June 2001 (preceded by informal consultations, 4-5 June);

·  Istanbul +5: follow-up to the Habitat Agenda adopted in 1996 in Istanbul by 171Governments at the Second United Nations Conference on Human Settlements (Habitat II);

·  Mandated by the General Assembly in resolution 52/190 of 18 December 1997;

·  In its resolution 53/180, the General Assembly decided that the Commission on HumanSettlements should serve as the preparatory committee, be open-ended and allow full participation of all States;

·  The Preparatory Committee held two sessions, opened by the Chairperson of the Commission on Human Settlements acting as the Preparatory Committee for the specialsession;

·  The Bureau of the Preparatory Committee was composed of the Chairperson, threeVice-Chairpersons and one Rapporteur.

·  The official review process began in October 1999 with the issuing of “Guidelines for Country Reporting” by the Conference (Habitat). To facilitate reporting, a five-step assessment and reporting process was advocated by the Conference (Habitat): organize a national Habitat committee, collect and analyse information, hold national workshops to review plans of action, agree on priorities for future action and initiatives, and prepare a country report;

·  Countries were requested to prepare national reports through a consultative process using broad-based, gender-balanced national committees;

·  The national reports (96) were consolidated in regional reports that were presented at five regional preparatory meetings held between September and November 2000. Habitat and the regional economic commissions jointly organized these regional meetings. Four of the regional meetings adopted declarations, while one concluded with a strategy for the implementation of the Habitat Agenda;

·  In its resolution 55/195 of 20 December 2000, the General Assembly decided that the special session should have a plenary, an ad hoc committee and a thematic committee;

·  The Secretary-General and President of the General Assembly addressed the session;

·  The session was also addressed by representatives of 144 countries, including senior government officials and numerous national housing and town-planning ministers;

·  Several Habitat partners, civil society leaders and non-governmental organizations also attended the session.

III. FOLLOW-UP TO THE WORLD SUMMIT FOR SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT: ACHIEVING SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT FOR ALL IN A GLOBALIZING WORLD

Twenty-fourth special session of the General Assembly, Geneva, June-July 2000 (seehttp://www.un.org/esa/socdev/geneva2000/):

·  Held 26 June-1 July 2000;

·  Follow-up to the World Summit for Social Development, held in Copenhagen in 1995;

·  Review conference mandated by the General Assembly in resolution 53/28 of 19November 1998;

·  The Assembly established a Preparatory Committee open to all Member States, with the participation of observers;

·  The Bureau of the Preparatory Committee was composed of five members;

·  The Chair of the Commission for Social Development was an ex-officio member of the Bureau;

·  One organizational and two substantive sessions of the Preparatory Committee were held: in May 1999 and April 2000, as well as intersessional informal consultations in September 1999 and June 2000;

·  At the request of the Preparatory Committee, the Secretary-General invited Governments to submit to the Secretariat information on implementation of the outcomeof the Summit; respective guidelines on national reporting were formulated;

·  In tandem with the plenary, there was an Ad Hoc Committee of the Whole where statements were made by representatives of agencies, funds and programmes of the United Nations system, as well as 30 non-governmental organizations. In addition, threeChairman’s panels were convened;

·  Parallel to the special session, the Government of Switzerland organized the Geneva2000 Forum, “The next step in social development”, at which different socialactors shared experiences;

·  35 Heads of State and Government attended the session, 500 non-governmental organizations, 420 members of the media, 56 intergovernmental organizations and others.

IV. IMPLEMENTATION OF THE OUTCOME OF THE FOURTH WORLD CONFERENCE ON WOMEN:

WOMEN 2000: GENDER EQUALITY, DEVELOPMENT AND PEACE FOR THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY

Twenty-third special session of the General Assembly, New York, June 2000 (seehttp://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/followup/beijing%2B5.htm):

·  Held 5-9 June 2000;

·  Beijing +5: follow-up to the Fourth World Conference on Women, held in Beijing in1995;

·  Mandated by the General Assembly in resolution 52/231 of 4 June 1998;

·  The Commission on the Status of Women acted as the Preparatory Committee, which was open to the participation of all Member States, members of specialized agencies and observers, pursuant to General Assembly resolution 52/100;

·  The Bureau of the Preparatory Committee had 10 members;

·  The Division for the Advancement of Women acted as the substantive secretariat;

·  The Preparatory Committee held three sessions;

·  The Secretariat prepared a questionnaire on actions taken to implement the Platform ofAction, analysed responses of States, identified the main trends, and submitted the report to the Preparatory Committee at its third session;

·  Regional preparatory meetings were held (during 1999 and 2000) by all five regional commissions to assess implementation and develop regional strategies for further action;

·  As the Economic and Social Council and the General Assembly had requested reports on emerging issues, trends and new approaches to issues affecting the situation of women, the Division for the Advancement of Women of the Secretariat convened an international workshop in this regard in Beirut in 1999. This report was put before the Preparatory Committee at its third session;

·  In accordance with General Assembly resolution 54/142, participation in the twentythird special session was at a “high political level”. The plenary was addressedby representatives of 148 Member States, including 2 Prime Ministers, 4VicePresidents, ministers and deputy ministers;

·  Sources of funding: in recognition of the importance of equitable geographical participation of non-governmental organizations in the special session, the GeneralAssembly urged relevant United Nations bodies to assist those nongovernmental organizations that did not have resources, in particular nongovernmental organizations from developing countries and countries with economies in transition, in participating in the special session;

·  There was no specific NGO forum.

V. SPECIAL SESSION ON THE INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCEON POPULATION AND DEVELOPMENT

Twenty-first special session of the General Assembly, New York, 1999 (seehttp://www.un.org/ga/popu/):

·  Held 30 June-2 July 1999;

·  Review of the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) held in Cairo in 1994;

·  Mandated by the General Assembly in resolution 52/188 of 18 December 1997;

·  The Commission on Population and Development (CPD), acted as the Preparatory Committee;

·  The Preparatory Committee was open-ended, allowing the full participation of all States and observers;

·  The Bureau of the Preparatory Committee served as the Bureau of the Ad Hoc Committee of the Whole. The Bureau was composed of nine members;

·  One session and several informal consultations were held;

·  The United Nations Population Fund organized a series of round tables, technical meetings, and regional meetings, beginning in 1998;

·  In February 1999 in The Hague, an NGO forum, a youth forum, a parliamentarians’ forum, and an intergovernmental forum (the Hague Forum) were convened to provide input to the review process.

VI. SPECIAL SESSION OF THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY TO REVIEWAND APPRAISE THE IMPLEMENTATION OF AGENDA 21 (EARTHSUMMIT +5)

Nineteenth special session of the General Assembly, New York, 1997 (seehttp://www.un.org/esa/earthsummit/):

·  Held 23-27 June 1997;

·  Review of Agenda 21, adopted by the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (Earth Summit), held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 1992;

·  Mandated by the General Assembly in resolution 47/190 of 22 December 1992;

·  The Commission on Sustainable Development acted as the preparatory body for this session;

·  Two official preparatory meetings were held in New York in 1997: the Ad Hoc Intersessional Open-ended Working Group meeting of the Commission on Sustainable Development, from 24 February to 7 March, and the fifth session of the Commission on Sustainable Development, from 7 to 25 April;

·  A number of events were organized by Governments, United Nations agencies and major groups around the world to assess progress in preparation for the special session;

·  Approximately 100 Heads of State attended the session;

·  An NGO event, the Rio +5 Forum, was held 13-19 March 1997 in Rio de Janeiro.

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