General Assembly: Working Group on the Strengthening and Revitalizing of the Work of the General Assembly, 80th session

I I call to order the informal meeting of the working group on strengthening and revitalization of the work of the General Assembly.
We welcome you and our speakers here today.
This meeting is held in accordance with General Assembly Resolution 79 slash 327 of fifth September 2025, which called to continue the practice of the convening of an annual interactive dialogue between member states and the Secretariat.
Excellency, distinguished delegates, colleagues.
Good morning.
It is my pleasure in my capacity as co chair of the working group on the strengthening and revitalization of the work of the General Assembly to welcome you to this year's annual interactive dialogue between member states and the Secretariat.
This dialogue provides a valuable opportunity for an open and practical exchange on the respective and complementary roles of member states and the Secretariat in supporting the effective functioning of the General Assembly.
As we begin this session, we are pleased to have with us colleagues from DGACM, DGC, DSS, DOS, and DMSPC.
We thank you for your continued support and look forward to hearing your perspectives.
Today's discussion will focus in particular on the implementation of Resolution 79 slash 327, the impact of the liquidity crisis, initiatives to strengthen support to the General Assembly, and other challenges affecting the efficiency and effectiveness of our work.
We hope this will be a candid and constructive dialogue with particular focus on practical solutions and opportunities for improvement.
I encourage delegations to keep their interventions brief and focused, allowing ample time for an interactive exchange with our Secretariat colleagues.
With that, I am pleased to open the dialogue and look forward to a productive discussion.
Thank you.
I now give the floor to my colleague and co chair, Ambassador Futa.
Much Dear colleagues.
Not much to add.
We will go straight to business.
Indeed, this meeting as well is part of the implementation efforts of member states of Resolution 70 9327.
I think it would be also a good time for us to reflect on best practices implementing important features and decisions in that resolution.
But of course, I will be looking as well forward to the conversation and to the debriefing from the senior leadership of the Secretariat on issues that are always of interest to member states.
Back to you.
Thank you.
At this point, I now give the floor to miss Catherine Pollack, Under Secretary-General for Management Strategy, Policy and Compliance.
Thank you.
Thank you, Madam Chair, Distinguished co chairs, Excellencies, distinguished delegates and colleagues.
Good morning.
I would like to thank the co chairs for convening this meeting and for inviting the Department of Management Strategy, Policy and Compliance to brief you.
These interactive dialogues are valuable opportunities to ensure that the services and substantive support provided by the Secretariat remains closely aligned with the needs and priorities of member states, while at the same time, enhancing our effectiveness, transparency, and responsiveness.
As you know, DMSPC does not have a broad mandate to provide direct Secretariat support to the General Assembly, except the substantive and technical support that we provide to the Fifth committee.
More broadly, we support the General Assembly in exercising its governance responsibilities by strengthening transparency, accountability, internal controls, and by improving access to timely information on the management of the organization.
Over the recent years, we have substantially expanded the information and data available to member states.
The UN Secretariat Workforce portal provides daily updated information on the composition of the Secretariat workforce, including by entity, level, and nationality.
Information on representation under the System of desirable ranges is also updated monthly.
The budget Information pilot and program budget results dashboard at results.un.org, similarly provides member states with improved access to resource and programmatic performance information.
The Integrated performance Management and reporting capability is also intended to provide greater visibility into program performance as its coverage and adoption are expanded.
Through a dedicated Umoja portal, member states can also access information on financial contributions.
These initiatives reflect the broader direction of our management reforms, simplifying policies and processes, strengthening internal controls, and increasing transparency over the use of resources.
Our aim is to give member states better information with which to perform their governance and decision making roles.
In implementing the relevant provisions of Resolution 70 9327, we continue to support the General Assembly's objectives relating to equitable geographic distribution and gender parity.
I'm pleased to report tangible progress.
The number of underrepresented member states under the system of desirable ranges declined from 36 in 2021 to 31 in December 2024 and to 24 by June 2026.
External recruitment from underrepresented member states increased by approximately one third 2024-2025.
In 2025, for the first time, nationals of underrepresented member states accounted for more than half of all geographical external recruitments.
Nevertheless, 21 member states remain unrepresented and sustained attention is therefore necessary.
We continue to pursue targeted outreach, talent pipeline and capacity development initiatives, including through purposeful partnership agreements, alongside strengthened workforce planning and greater use of recruitment data.
We have also made progress towards gender parity.
As of June 2026, women represented 47.5% of internationally recruited staff, bringing the Secretariat within the gender parity range.
Women accounted for 52.1% of external recruitment of international staff in 2025.
Parity has been achieved at the Secretary-General, Director D two level, and professional P five levels, while women's representation at the assistant secretary level increased from 38.6% in 2024 to 44.6% in 2025.
Progress is still needed, particularly in peacekeeping operations and traditionally male dominated occupational areas, including security, technology, logistics and supply chain functions.
These achievements and ambitions must, however, be placed in the context of the continuing liquidity crisis and its impact on mandate delivery.
DMSPC has implemented cash conservation measures across our operations.
Vacancies have remained unfilled, capacity building activities have had to be reduced, deferred or replaced by virtual delivery, and activities requiring investment in information technology and new digital tools have been slowed or phased over longer periods.
This has affected the pace at which we can advance some of the initiatives that I've earlier described, including those relating to geographical representation, gender parity, management reform, and strengthened internal controls.
At the same time, DMSPC has an organization wide responsibility in helping to manage the liquidity situation itself.
This requires significant and sustained engagement with entities across the Secretariat on liquidity management, continuous monitoring of expenditure levels, vacancy management, contingency planning, and monitoring mandate implementation.
We're therefore affected in two ways.
Our own capacity is constrained by the liquidity situation, while considerable DMSBC capacity must simultaneously be dedicated to helping the organization manage the same crisis.
Simply put, without these constraints, we could do more and move faster.
Despite these constraints, we've continued to identify practical ways of improving our direct support to the work of the General Assembly.
The Fifth Committee Secretariat has significantly enhanced access to information through improvements to its website and resources available through the e delegate portal, including the development of a new Fifth Committee InfoHub.
A documentation dashboard now provides links to issued reports and updated information on the status of documentation, including those in the process of translation or awaiting submission.
For the upcoming main part of the 81st session, the system covers 164 reports that member states can filter by session, agenda item, and originating department.
We've also made the substantial volume of supplementary information easier to access.
During the ATS session, supplementary information comprise 26,039 pages covering 2,373 questions.
This material is now being consolidated by agenda item, so delegations can more readily download and search the information that they require.
The Secretariat has also consolidated the committee's reporting on recommendations adopted at its closing meetings.
For the main part of the ATF session, what would previously have required 15 separate reports was presented in a single report.
A new outcomes dashboard covering the committee's work since the seven to six session is also planned to be available shortly.
These technical improvements have a practical objective, making it easier for delegates to find, understand, and use the information required for their deliberations and decisions.
Another important and relatively new area of support concerns program budget implications or PBIs.
Under the approach adopted by the General Assembly, the Secretariat is increasingly required to provide information on the potential financial implications arising from draft resolutions and decisions during different stages of the negotiating process rather than principally at their conclusion.
Earlier visibility of potential resource implications can support more informed negotiations and decision making by member states.
At the same time, this creates a significant new operational requirement for the Secretariat.
It requires financial and program expertise to be available at multiple points during negotiations, sometimes at short notice, and across several processes simultaneously.
We are working to respond to this request from the General Assembly.
We've also continued to strengthen accountability and internal control systems, including in response to requests from the General Assembly.
The annual closure rate for board of auditors recommendations increased to 73% in 2025, compared with 54% in 2024 and 48% in 2023.
This reflects sustained efforts to address oversight recommendations and strengthen management accountability across the Secretariat.
In line with General Assembly Resolution 70 9257, the Secretariat is also reviewing the accountability of the first and second lines of defense in human resources and asset management.
This work is important in providing member states with assurance that delegated authority is being exercised responsibly, risks are being appropriately identified and managed, and internal controls across the organization remain effective.
While progress has been made, liquidity and capacity constraints have affected the pace at which we can take forward some of these improvements.
We are exploring technology solutions and new tools to improve efficiency.
However, the development and deployment of technological solutions may take longer due to resource constraints.
Excellencies, we will continue to look for ways to simplify our processes, make better use of technology and data, and provide member states with timely and accessible information.
But there is an important connection between liquidity, institutional capacity, and effective governance.
When vacancies cannot be filled, when investments in technology must be deferred, when capacity building is reduced, and when significant staff resources must be redirected towards managing cash constraints, the pace of improvement inevitably slows.
Our responsibility is therefore both to manage these constraints as effectively as possible and to be transparent with member states about their consequences.
We remain committed to doing everything within our capacity to support the General Assembly and member states, and I look forward to hearing your perspectives and discussion today.
Thank you, Madam Co chair.
I thank the Under Secretary-General for Management strategy Policy and Compliance.
I now give the floor to Mr.
Ian Phillips, Director of News and Media of the Department of Global Communications.
Thank you very much, Excellency distinguished delegates.
Thank you for the opportunity to brief you on our efforts to support the revitalization of the General Assembly and for what I'm sure will be a constructive interactive dialogue between this ad hoc working group and the Secretariat.
We meet at a time of great challenges for the international community against a backdrop of multi layered intersecting crises, widespread conflicts, the climate emergency and runaway technology.
Challenges only made more difficult to address during a period marked by a questioning of multilaterlism.
In these strained times, the work of the General Assembly, humanity's one of a kind meeting ground matters more than ever.
Yet in these strained times, it is still hard for this body to make itself heard, to explain its decisions, its resolutions, and recommendations, and to build trust and understanding of our organization with audiences around the world.
Raising the visibility of the GA and its work lies at the core of our role at the Department of Global Communications.
Yet that task is more difficult than ever.
We communicate at a time when contested narratives spread like wildfire, when new cycles move at lightning speeds, and when audiences are bombarded, overwhelmed, and unsure about what to believe.
Attention spans are short, community is divided, emotions are running high.
It is into this fractured adversarial landscape that we must communicate and we do so on behalf of this body and for the whole of the United Nations.
This is compounded by the organization's ongoing liquidity crisis, which has strained resources and capacity across the department.
That said, despite the gaps caused by the budget cuts and hiring freeze, our teams do remain focused on delivering the results the General Assembly expects of us.
Against this backdrop, I want to outline three main ways we draw attention to the work of the GA.
First, we show it, second, we record it.
Third, we connect it.
Let's start with how we show it.
We feature and highlight the GAs work across our platforms in the six official languages.
Whether that is via our UN news output, meetings coverage on the official YouTube channel or on un.org, the organization's main website.
Our UN web TV team and UN TV team offers live and on demand streaming of GA open meetings.
Meetings coverage offers continuous multilingual reporting, interviews, and explainers.
Our UN TV and UFD facilities provide complete, live and packaged broadcast quality coverage to international broadcasters and news agencies, while our UN video explainers and features give viewers direct insights into the work of the GA.
This provides content for UN high level official social media platforms, including the president of the General Assembly.
Further, we are responsible for the GAs web presence.
Our web services section manages the dedicated multilingual GA website, including pages covering the revitalization process in six languages.
With up to 6 million views a year, our GA pages are some of the most visited parts of unn.org.
Meanwhile, our dedicated multilingual general debate site, g debate.un.org, offers a real time who is speaking now or next feature, plus a full statement archive across sessions.
These activities offer the world a ringside seat for the work of the General Assembly, building trust with transparency and comprehension with clarity.
Second, let's look at how we record the GAs work.
The Dag Hammerseld Library, the UN library provides a complete overview of the UN's work.
Updated daily, this database holds more than 1 million records, including every GA decision, speech, and voting record since 1946.
The library also tracks and organizes a record of the work of each main committee with every agenda item and voting records saved and easily accessible for posterity.
This facility serves as the General Assembly's institutional memory, distributing the digital handbook on past GA practices, preserving records from the Office of the President of the General Assembly, and hosting the PGAs morning dialogue sessions.
This resource is well loved.
Last year, its documents were downloaded more than 65 million times.
What's more, the library is already providing one of the key requests put forward by this ad hoc committee.
AHWG resolution as slash 79 slash 327 calls for common reference data for the consolidation of the assembly.
This process involves standardizing names, agenda items, and other documents to facilitate the sharing of information.
It's important to note that the UN library already manages this work.
Updated daily, a master list of standardized terms is available at metadata.un.org in six languages.
This list feeds automatically into the UN Digital Library and official documents System.
To reiterate, the system is already built and functioning.
We don't need to reinvent the wheel.
Lastly, we connect the work of the GA to audiences around the world.
We do that via the media and via our own direct channels.
Our media accreditation and liaison unit accredits, escorts, and informs thousands of media outlets as they visit us here in New York.
This work reaches its peak, of course, during the high level week.
Last year, Maliu approved approximately 3,300 UNGA media pass applications and supported 2,500 members of the media on campus.
We also work directly to get the word out to our audiences.
We are present in many member states via our network of UN information centers or units.
Well versed in local languages and context, these teams help relate the work of the General Assembly to audiences on the ground.
Whether it's media outreach, tours, or educational activities, the units offer vital points of contact to the UN for many people around the world.
To note, the liquidity crisis has also led to a decrease in language capacity in some non official languages, both here at headquarters and at a number of units.
However, our teams are working to leverage technology to help fill this gap.
Finally, we raise the voice of the GA through our dedicated social media channels.
Speaking to more than 70 million followers, we bring the GA into the feeds of audiences around the world.
Last year's general debate coverage, for example, alone drew roughly 1,000 posts, more than 1 million engagements, and around 8 million video views.
Distinguished delegates, I'm looking forward to a constructive discussion in a moment, but I'd like to close by reiterating DGC's commitment to the work of this ad hoc committee.
We are dedicated to meeting the challenges of today's communication landscape head on, supporting a GA whose work is seen, understood, and trusted worldwide, especially at times like these.
It is vital we work to ensure the GAs voice echoes far beyond the General Assembly Hall and that our United Nations truly serves the public it represents.
Thank you.
I thank the Director of News and Media of the Department of Global Communications, and I now give the floor to Mr.
Alessandro Susini, acting Director of the Division of Administration of the Department for Operational Support.
Excellencies, co chairs, distinguished delegates, colleagues.
I am pleased to brief you today on recent and ongoing work undertaken by the Department of Operational Support on behalf of the Under Secretary-General, Mr.
Abdulkare as unfortunately, he could not attend today's meeting due to other commitments.
With that said, let me begin by emphasizing our continued commitment to accessibility at the United Nations headquarters.
Since 2018, DS has implemented a complex wide accessibility enhancement program informed by an accessibility survey that identified improvements beyond the Capital master plan.
Key improvements completed by 2024 included the GA restroom lift, sidewalk curb cuts, automatic openers at the entrance doors to all conference rooms in the conference and general assembly buildings first basement level, double automatic exit gate at the perimeter fence of the building site, and other related improvements.
In continuation of these efforts, DS has recently completed a follow up assessment report with the call architectural firm to identify further improvements that can be realized and implemented going forward.
Phase one of the assessment was conducted and finalized in March 2025, identifying accessibility gaps in priority areas, recommending further improvements for the member states delegates, visitors and staff with disabilities.
In addition, in 2025, automatic door openers were installed at the entrances to ten office floors of the Secretariat building, and Bar signage was introduced for conference rooms located on staff office floors.
Thus, in coordination with relevant departments, secured approval for a five year accessibility budget.
Accessibility features have also been incorporated into the DC two renovation, Phase one of which has already been completed, encompassing four floors with automatic door openers installed at each floor entrance, accessible workspaces, height adjustable desks, accessible meeting rooms and offices, accessible focus booth, and visual and audible emergency notification systems.
Turning to the general assembly hall, In the context of the sustainable sustainability efforts being driven by the host country, the existing metal halide lighting in the GO have become more challenging to replace.
In view of this, we have developed a plan to introduce durable energy efficient lead fixtures as a replacement.
Thus is continuing a multi year modernization of the general assembly hall and other conference rooms to replace aging infrastructure and upgrade critical conferencing, audio visual interpretation, and broadcast systems.
For 2027, DoS has requested approximately $8.1 million to advance those refurbishment efforts with priority given to the general assembly hall due to the importance as the organizational's principal deliberative chamber, and conference room seven.
The project also includes replacing seating and other furnishings while preserving the whole historic character.
DS also cooperated with the Office of the President of the General Assembly to seek member states contributions for the refurblishment of the GA hall.
On space and facilities, following the signing of a new lease for the UN DC two building, a complex renovation is being undertaken to ensure the building is made fit for purpose for the duration of the new lease.
In this regard, we are pleased to inform that through the efficiencies created during the renovation, combined with using space available in the United Nations headquarters complex, it is planned to vacate to both the Galbano and FFF buildings when their current leases expire in September and December 2027 respectively.
With respect to catering under the new contract effective first January 2026, and consistent with the previous arrangement, catering operations continue to be managed under the management fee model.
The new contract, however, includes a provision requiring a transition to a profit and loss model once revenues exceed a specified threshold.
Under the profit and loss model, the contractor assumes full responsibility for the financial performance of the operation and receive no financial support from the United Nations in the form of a subsidy.
Any operating losses are borne entirely by the contractor without compensation from the United Nations.
The all profits generated are shared between the parties with 50% of net profits remitted to the United Nations.
This arrangement shifts greater financial responsibility to the contractor while creating incentives to increase revenue, improve operational efficiency, and reduce reliance on subsidy funding.
The total subsidy for catering operations amounted to $1.4 million in 2025.
For 2026, approved subsidy funding was reduced to $1.3 million with the $742,000 had already been spent between January and July 2026.
In response to rising operating costs and the need to remain within the approved subsidy level, several cost control and revenues ennocement measures were implemented.
To help offset increases in food, labor, and other direct operating costs, cafe prices were increased by 5% in May 2026.
Cafe operating hours were also reduced to better align staffing levels with customer demand and lower overall labor expenses.
In addition, a tiered pricing structure was introduced at the visitor cafe, which primarily serves external visitors.
Effective first March 2026, retail prices for visitors were increased by 20% to better reflect the higher cost of service delivery and generate additional revenue.
On ICT matters, DOS and the Office of Information and Communication Technology are committed to ensure the efficient delivery of ICT services.
To this end, we have made targeted investments to modernize critical services.
My colleague Chief of Service and Acting Director of the operational Support Division, misses Tata Valyo will share more details.
Finally, co chairs, distinguished delegates and colleagues, I would like to thank you for your continuing engagement and support.
I look forward to your questions and comments.
Thank you.
I thank the Director for the Department for operational Support.
I now give the floor to miss Christine Tata Valeo, acting Director of Operation Support of the Office of Information and Communications Technology.
Thank you, distinguished co chairs, Excellencies, members of the ad hoc working group and colleagues, good day.
I'm pleased to speak on ICT matters on behalf of the Assistant Secretary-General and Chief Information Technology Officer, Mr.
Bernardo Mariano Junior.
With your support, ICT remains a core enabler of the General Assembly's vital work.
We are strengthening enterprise ICT capabilities, modernizing core infrastructure, and advancing digital accessibility.
This commitment is reflected in the services that we provide every day.
Our broadcast and conferencing system support open and closed captioning, real time transcription, high quality audio for multilingual interpretation and accessible displays.
We are also systematically advancing accessibility across our websites, applications, and digital services.
With regard to the work that OICT does for the General Assembly directly and indirectly as part of our support, the liquidity crisis requires us to prioritize the most urgent technology upgrades and equipment replacements across the UN campus that support member states.
The Secretariat had originally proposed a broader five year project to modernize technologies and all intergovernmental conference rooms, subject to funding availability.
However, given the current constraints, we are re scoping to focus first on the most critical and deteriorating equipment.
Our immediate proposal is to upgrade the technologies in the GA Hall and conference room seven, and we intend to procure equipment in 2027 and install in 2028.
Timing of the work will continue to be coordinated with our facilities colleagues andOs for furniture and lighting work as well as room availability with colleagues in the GACM.
Beyond liquidity related issues, we continue to face challenges arising from growing ICT security demands and the need to modernize legacy technologies while maintaining uninterrupted services.
Addressing these challenges require continued prioritization and collaboration across the Secretariat and while AI presents opportunities to improve the way we work, any deployment must remain consistent with UN principles on responsible use of AI and ICT security risks are effectively mitigated.
We look forward to continuing our engagement with member states as we continue to implement practical, secure, and inclusive digital solutions.
Thank you very much.
I thank the Acting Director of Operational Support of the Office of Information and Communications Technology.
I now give the floor to Mr.
Moses Abelian, under Secretary-General for the General Assembly and Conference Management.
Co chairs.
Thank you, distinguished delegates.
Good morning.
Thank you for inviting me to brief you on the work of the DJCM.
In this brief update, I will focus on three provisions of the JA Resolution 79.327.
In In paragraph 28 of Resolution 70 9327, the General Assembly decided to simplify the adoption of draft resolutions and decisions recommended by the main committees in their reports.
During the current session, we organized briefings for delegates for each main committee immediately before the plenary meetings at each action was taken on the respective reports.
The streamlined process, the so called one devil approach, which was one of the outcomes of the resolution 70 9327, has reduced the time required for constration.
I'll just give you one example.
If you take the first committee reports, took 268 minutes during the 79th session to approve all those reports.
But at the 80th session using the long del approach, with introduction with that approach, it took only 155 minutes.
That's how you were able with that revitalization to come up at reducing time for adoption of the reports in the General Assembly.
In paragraph 30 of the Resolution 70 9327, the GA decided to amend its rules and procedures, as you recall, with effect from the opening of the 80th session.
Accordingly, we issued the revised rules in six official languages on the first day of that session.
In paragraph 36 of the GA resolution, I welcome the rollout of the GOV platform, recognizing that its contribution to transparency, efficiency of the work of assembly and its subsidiary bodies.
It also requested that the platform be extended to include publicly available information on the work of the subsidiary bodies.
I would like to report that to date, information on 25 organs has been incorporated already in GO platform.
Tags, I have no choice.
I have to use the word liquidity also in my remarks.
You know, as I've indicated in my briefing last year, we are continuing to affected by the liquidity constraints.
We are fully committed to improve the efficiency of our support to member states deliberations, decision making.
However, the implementation of certain request has had to be delayed, including the request contained in the Resolution 70 7335 to create an e delegate web form for submission of reasonable accommodation requests.
Unfortunately, the department does not currently have the financial or human resources required to develop the form.
Against this backdrop, We observed an increasing number of resolutions that call for new activities and mandates to be implemented within existing resources.
It is nearly 50 resolutions with such a wording during this current ADF session.
Given the financial stress, this approach simply cannot be sustained and indefinitely.
As reported in the proposed program budget for 2027, we provide technical secretaria service to the General Assembly, including to co facilitator appointed by the President of General Assembly for informal consultation on draft resolutions.
The number of these processes has increased significantly over the years.
At the same time, resources in 2025, 2026 have meant that the General Assembly first vision is no longer able to provide in person coverage for every meeting.
I think currently we have 16, 17 co facilitator processes.
Nonetheless, we continue to provide procedural advice and organizational support continued for all informal consultations, enabling those processes proceed effectively.
Beyond intergonmental services, the current funding environment has required the JSCM to contain our own expenditures.
We prioritize meetings included in the official calendar, reinforce scheduled meeting hours more rigorously, accelerated the processing of documentation, and reduce reliance on external capacity and outsourcing.
These measures are intended to preserve core services within the resources available.
In addition of implementing provisions of Resolution 70 9327, we continued to support the improvement initiatives across the intergumental bodies.
In particular, by our own initiative, we advised the reporters on ways to streamline main committee reports, contributing to substantial reduction in their length.
Just to give an example, third committee, one of the biggest number of the reports, Until 79 session, I had the 18 reports in 567 pages.
At the 80th session, it was reduced to one document in 92 pages.
That's how significantly has changed.
Co chairs in closing, I wish to reaffirm our commitment to supporting your work, that of the General Assembly, Microske and other intergovernmental bodies, and I look forward for your comments and observations.
Thank you.
I thank the Under Secretary-General for General Assembly and Conference Management.
I now give the floor to my fellow co chair, Ambassador Furuta.
Thank you, Ambassador Williams.
I have to say that after USG's Balian statement is the first time that I think we quantify the impact of some of the provisions in the resolution.
I think that's very much welcome.
Colleagues, we open up the floor for comments, questions from delegations.
I would encourage you to press your microphone button.
If you speak on behalf of a group, just approach the speaker's list table to the left and to, to your right.
We have several requests for the floor.
I have Australia on behalf of Cans, Algeria on behalf of the non Movement, Switzerland on behalf of the ACT Group.
We have Portugal and we have several other member states.
We'll take them one by one.
Australia on behalf of Cans, please, you have the floor to be followed by Algunia Did you press the microphone? You do.
Australia? I can speak loudly.
Yes, I know you can.
Here we are.
That works.
Thank you, co chairs and can I thank each of the briefers on what I think was a really useful set of presentations this morning.
It gives us a very real sense of how change is being affected, what some of the challenges are, and where we as member states can best reflect on how we contribute to next steps.
Obviously, the agreement last year to resolution 79327 was an important step.
However, we all know that the credibility of our efforts will not be measured by commitments adopted, but the actual implementation.
We make three points as cans.
First, we must contain and reduce the General Assembly's growing workload.
We've heard this clearly from the briefs this morning and it's something which we need to own and address amongst ourselves.
At a time of significant financial pressure on the United Nations, we simply cannot continue adding mandates, meetings, and resolutions without equal attention to impact efficiencies, prioritization, and delivery.
Through Resolution 79327 and 82 51, member states committed to exercising more discipline in the creation of mandates and the avoidance of unnecessary duplication.
As member states, we must implement these commitments without delay.
In this regard, from our CAS perspective, one practical measure would be for member states to implement fully the moratorium on new international days, weeks, months and years.
A moratorium on commemorative mandates during the 81st and 82nd sessions was established in response to long standing concerns about the cumulative burden they would place on the system.
Such reforms will definitely push us towards a general assembly that spends less time on managing processes and more time on delivering outcomes.
We consider this will be critical not only to gain efficiencies, but to restore trust and relevance in the institution.
We all know that each one of us has our particular favorite mandate and our particular favorite resolution, so we need to own the fact that collectively we need to come together to divest ourselves of unnecessary additions and unnecessary businessness.
Second, general assembly revitalization must proceed alongside broader reform.
CAS welcomes progress already achieved on working method reform of the main committees, including the recent Second VIE decision on revitalization measures.
We encourage all main committees to apply revitalization principles to their own work.
Specifically, we encourage all committees to bring forward proposals that expand the use of binnial and triennial reporting cycles, reduce repetition and elimination of duplication, encourage member states to exercise restraint and to limit the creation of new agenda items and to maximize the utilization of digital tools.
And as the incoming chair of the committee, Australia and myself in particular is committed to driving practical reforms that make three C more focused, efficient, and impactful, but any of us who has actually chaired the committee knows how difficult that is, so I'll do my best.
CAS also encourages closer alignment between General Assembly revitalization and the ONAD reform process.
Principles agreed in resolution 82 51 regarding mandate review clauses and retirement provisions, as well as ensuring scrutiny on financial implication, duplication, and long term value of new mandates will be essential if we're serious about building more effective and sustainable United Nations.
Finally, CAS welcomes implementation of other general assembly revitalization reform measures, including efforts to enforce speaking time limits, streamline procedures, and strengthen transparency in the selection of the next Secretary-General.
We very much encourage the incoming president of the General Assembly to continue advancing a culture of efficiency and accountability.
As we all know, colleagues, the General Assembly has never lacked ideas for reform.
We've just been particularly bad at putting them into practice.
The 81st session presents an opportunity to shift the dial towards a more focused, disciplined, and effective General Assembly.
I thank you.
I think Australia, speaking on behalf of Cs, now I think there is a prospect to reduce even more.
The 92 pages report of the third committee, taking it down.
But I think that brings a valid point.
Implementing implementation not only happening in these meetings, or in the General Assembly, it happens quite a lot in the committees and the philosophy of the revitalization resolution adopted last year builds exactly on the important role of the committees.
How we member states decide to forego the temptation to put forward every session, the same resolutions without any operational change in their nature.
There is quite a lot happening in the committees and of course, the experience in the committees differs from a committee to another.
But I think together we can build on best practices.
I now give the floor to Algeria on behalf of the non Line movement to be followed by Switzerland.
Geria please.
Thank you, co chairs.
I have the honor to deliver this statement on behalf of the non aligned movement, conveying the movement's view and posing several questions to the representative of the Secretariat during this informal interactive dialogue on the revitalization of the work of the General Assembly.
At the outset, the non aligned movement wishes to express its appreciation to the cosirs for convening this direct and frank exchange, which provides valuable opportunity for member states to engage with the Secretariat on issues relating to the revitiization of the work of the General Assembly.
We also extend our appreciation to the senior representative of the Secretariat for their participation in this dialogue and for the informative and insightful presentation.
Co shares.
The non aligned movement has long been committed to and actively engaged in the strengthening and revitalization of the work of the General Assembly, while attaching great importance to the principle of inclusiveness, multilingualism, equitable geographical representation, transparency, accountability, and good faith cooperation.
These principles have constantly guided and misc to guide the work of the United Nations.
Against this backdrop in the context of today's interactive dialogue, allow me to present the following observations and questions for the consideration of the Secretariat.
First, implementation of previous resolution on revitalization.
The non aligned movement wishes to acknowledge the efforts undertaken by the Secretariat to implement previous resolution on the revitalization of the work of the General Assembly and to ensure the smooth and efficient organization of its meetings and related activities.
The non aligned movement attaches great importance to the full implementation of present and previous resolution on the reuttirization of the work of the General Assembly.
In this regard, we recall paragraph 17 of General Assembly Resolution 79 slash 327.
We've decided that the working group on the strengthening and revitalization of the work of the General Assembly will be convened starting from the 80th session to review the implementation of the present and past resolution.
In light of this mandate, and mindful of the ongoing financial constraints and staff reduction affecting the organization, could the Secretariat elaborate on the measures that have been undertaken since the adoption of resolution 79 slash 327 to advance the implementation of current and previous vitalization resolutions.
Second, multilingualism.
The linguistic diversity of the United Nations as a whole and of the non aligned movement in particular requires the equitable treatment of all official languages, especially with regard to the timeless issuance of unofficial UN documentation in the six languages.
In this context, the movement will appreciate hearing more about the concrete measures the Secretary has taken to ensure the simultaneous publication and availability of official United Nations documents in all six official languages.
Third, proliferation of high level meetings during the high level week.
The non aligned movement recalls that through Resolution 79 slash 327, the General Assembly decided that starting from the 81st session, the number of high level meetings convened during the high level week would be limited to maximum of three with a view to allowing adequate space and time for delegations to focus on the general debate.
We, however, note that five high level meetings are currently scheduled to take place during high level week in September 2026.
In this regard, the movement will appreciate further clarification and elaboration from the Secretariat on the operational measures or guidelines it intends to put in place to ensure a more current and streamlined scheduling of high level meetings during high level week in accordance with Resolution 79 slash 327.
Fourth, equitable geographical representation.
The non aligned movement remains concerned that inadequate geographical representation continues to persist, particularly at the senior level of the Secretariat.
In this regard, could the Secretariat outline the tangible measures that have been taken to ensure equitable geographic representation and the widest possible geographical distribution of staff across all departments and offices, including geographical posts at the director level and above.
Fifth, the UN AT initiative and reforms.
The non aligned movement recognized the importance of ongoing efforts to streightthen the effectiveness and efficiency of the UN.
At the same time, we underscore that any reform process, including the UN AT initiative, must remain firmly enched in the intergovernmental network of the organization and be conducted in a transparent, inclusive, and consultative manner with the full participation of all member states.
In this regard, the movement will welcome information on how the Secretariat will ensure that any financial or budgetary measures adopted under this initiative do not adversely affect the implementation of mandates entrusted by member state, particularly those relating to the work of the General Assembly.
Six, the Office of the President of General Assembly.
The non aligned movement stresses the need to enhance and strengthen the role of the Office of the President of the General Assembly through the allocation of sufficient human and financial resources from the regular budget of the UN.
In this regard, the non aligned movement will welcome information on any financial measures affecting the OPGA that have been undertaken under the UN AT initiative.
We will also appreciate clarification or whatever there were specific criteria applied to ensure that such measures do not prejudice the provision of sufficient, predictable, or sustainable budgetary and logistical support necessary to strengthen the role, mandate, capacity, and resources of the OPGA.
In conclusion, allow me to reaffirm that non align movement's steadfast commitment to multilteralism, and to an effective, inclusive, transparent, and accountable United Nations.
The movement thanks the senior representative of the Secretariat once again for the availability and engagement.
We encourage the continuation of this regular exchange, including through more open, transparent, and substantive consultation with member states in order to ensure the effective implementation of the measures contained in past and present resolution on the revitalization of the work of the Sal Assembly.
Thank you.
I thank Karl Gia for the statement on behalf of the nonlin movement.
I think we'll revert to colleagues from the Secretariat at a later stage, and I think we'll address your points as well.
I give the floor to Switzerland to be followed by Portugal, Switzerland speaking on behalf of the ECT Group.
Distinguished co chairs, distinguished colleagues of the Secretariat.
I have the honor to deliver this statement on behalf of the accountability, coherence and Transparency Act Group.
Let me begin by expressing our appreciation to you for convening this dialogue and this representatives of the Secretariat for their valuable insights.
The group welcomes the ongoing updates to the inventory chart of General Assembly resolutions on the revitalization of the work of the GA and appreciates this opportunity to engage with the Secretariat on their implementation.
In this regard, we would like to hear more about progress on implementation of paragraph 12 of Resolution 79 slash 327 with regards to the annual update and wider dissemination of the digital handbook on past practices, data, and recommendations for the fulfillment of the functions and powers of the GA.
We would also appreciate an update on progress on the implementation of paragraph 36 of the same resolution concerning the extension of the GOF platform, particularly to the Security Council to increase the transparency and consolidation of information on its work.
In addition to these questions, allow me to focus on several issues that have been put forward by the Act group regarding the implementation of clusters one and three of A Resolution 79 slash 327.
First, on the selection and appointment of the next Secretary-General.
Act has consistently advocated for a process that is transparent, inclusive, and structured.
We very much welcome and appreciate the engagement of the president of the General Assembly in the current process, including the interactive dialogues with each of the candidates.
The town hall meeting and efforts to ensure the engagement of the broader global community.
We are also grateful for the efforts to ensuring that relevant information remains accessible and up to date on the dedicated web page as called for by this working group.
We believe that these efforts are important for the transparency and legitimacy of the process.
The next Secretary-General will be accountable to the entire United Nations membership.
It is therefore important that all member states have a meaningful opportunity to engage with the candidates and to contribute to a process that inspires confidence.
We continue to welcome the monthly meetings between the presidents of the GA and the Security Council, particularly to facilitate the ongoing selection and appointment process and encourage greater transparency around these meetings.
This could be useful to shed light on the planning for decision making in the council and the Assembly, including potential timing and results of straw polling processes.
Second, on the role of the General Assembly in maintaining international peace and security.
We welcome the commitments contained in the Pact for the future to strengthen the Security Council's relationship with the GA and to further enhance the Assembly's contribution to the maintenance of international peace and security.
The Pact explicitly calls for a stronger coordination between the two organs.
Act strongly supports a more effective and mutually reinforcing relationship between the GA and the Security Council in full respect of their respective mandates under the charter.
Resolution 70 9327 provides an important basis for strengthening this relationship.
In this regard, Act supports efforts towards a more analytical, substantive and responsive annual report from the council to the Assembly and welcomes the convening of the annual dialogue in January between the Council and the Assembly on the report's content prior to its drafting.
Distinguished co chairs, distinguished colleagues of the Secretariat.
We believe that a stronger relationship between the GA and the other main organs of the UN grounded in the charter, transparency and mutual respect will strengthen the UN as a whole.
A stands ready to contribute constructively to these efforts.
Thank you.
I think Switzerland, speaking on behalf of the group.
We have the following speakers.
We have Portugal, Honduras, Ecuador, Indonesia, the Russian Federation, and that is continuous.
I give the floor to Portugal to be followed by Honduras.
Portugal, please.
Thank you, co chair.
We thank the co chairs for their leadership in the working group and for convening this interactive dialogue.
We also thank the representatives of the Secretariat for their insightful and very useful presentations today.
Portugal aligned itself with the statement delivered by the Act group.
We highly value efforts to implement resolutions on the revitalization of the work of the General Assembly, including 70 9327.
Revitalizing the assembly means strengthening its credibility and responsiveness.
I take this opportunity to raise two specific questions on multilingualism, Portugal welcomes the recognition in Resolution 70 9327 of multilingualism as a core and fundamental value of the organization.
Preserving equal treatment of the six official languages as well as the use of non official languages where appropriate, can further broaden the reach of the United Nations and bring its work closer to the peoples it serves.
Portugal is proud to support DGC's work and its unit in Portuguese.
We know that liquidity is a challenge in this respect.
Besides liquidity, how could member states best support the Secretariat in ensuring that the UN reaches people in other languages, including, for instance, during the high level week? Linked to the previous question, but also in a more general context.
Portugal welcomes efforts aimed at modernization, digitalization and greater efficiency in the provision of support to intergovernmental processes.
We know that the Secretariat is already working to improve the usage of artificial intelligence in its daily work.
We heard that in some of your presentations.
Could you perhaps share best practices being implemented by the Secretariat on AI usage and also how member states can both support and benefit from these new tools.
Thank you.
I think Portugal, I get the float to Honduras to be followed by Ecuador.
Honduras, please.
Excellency Excellencies, distinguished delegates.
The operational structure of our General Assembly designs within a logic of annual sessions today falls short when faced with the challenges and the staggering global reality.
There are transport and communication limits that we had last century that now don't exist due to how interconnected our era is now.
This has allowed our general assembly to become more than just a dynamic body.
It's now a an outdated protocol based body.
Article 21 of the charter delegates for our sessions, gives us the flexibility to evolve.
However, we are limited to a calendar that does not correspond to the multidimensional crisis of our time.
The current dynamic requires an active assembly that's able to convene at least three substantive sessions per year that limits us in an agile swift response to international threats and we cannot allow the errors and failures of the past and administrative inertia to stop us from acting.
The relevance of this institution depends on our willingness to transform this forum into a true center for constant development and achieving resolutions.
We must respect the sovereign equality of member states as the United Nations Charter establishes for the election of the president of the General Assembly.
Otherwise, this organ will continue along a trajectory that will lead to inefficiency.
In each session, we have to adopt resolutions and revise them when they don't contain language that is in line with the content of the charter or that promotes violations of the charter.
And let the people of the world down.
Thank you very much.
I thank the distinguished Representative of Honduras and I now give the floor to the distinguished Representative of Ecuador.
Thank you very much, Ambassador Williams, Ambassador Futa.
Thank you very much for convening this meeting and thank you for the comments made.
The truth is that having very attentively listened to the briefings of the different representatives of the Secretariat, the delegation of Ecuador in principle, above and beyond the answers that will be given to all of the different questions asked, we fully agree with what has been discussed.
To safeguard the achievements of this organization, rescue the organization, the issues raised here should be considered as a whole, and they go in line with what you mentioned, Ambassador Federa quantifying how we can achieve this progress and look at how to continue to improve.
Now, on this occasion, I'll refer exclusively to one of the issues of Resolution 79 327, which is the selection of the Secretary-General and the appointment of the Secretary-General.
This is an exercise that is approaching its final steps and just some thoughts on this and looking at what we can improve in the future.
Transparency and inclusivity in this exercise is not the exclusive responsibility of the members of the Security Council.
It's also a collective responsibility of the 193 member states of the General Assembly.
Resolution 79 327 introduced improvements in this area.
Of course, we can always improve and under your leadership, I'm sure that we will be able to make more progress without having to wait another ten years to deal with this issue.
Transparency and access to information must be present from the very beginning of the procedure, particularly When the candidates are presented, the General Assembly can consider new measures to facilitate the selection and appointment of a Secretary-General who of course is the highest level official of the organization.
We must reflect on ways that will allow us to take account of the opinions of the states of nationality of the candidates, and this would contribute to safeguarding the integrity of the process, including the opportunity for the presentation of candidates.
When the candidates are presented.
This doesn't disregard the right of each and every member state individually or with other states to put forward a candidate.
This is the absolute prerogative that Ecuador fully respects.
Nevertheless, we must bear in mind that diplomatic courtesy is a recognized principle in international law.
It's not a merely protocol related matter.
A structured, predictable, transparent, and inclusive selection process where all member states have the opportunity to evaluate the candidates does not in any way whatsoever contradict Article 97 of the charter.
Thank you very much.
I thank the distinguished Representative of Ecuador and note the concerns and recommendations as it relates to the selection of the Secretary-General.
I now give the floor to the distinguished Representative of Indonesia.
Thank you very much, Madam Co chair, Excellency.
Indonesia aligns itself with the statement delivered by Algeria on behalf of the non aligned movement.
Allow us to add the following points in our national capacity.
We express our sincere appreciation to the PGA and the co chairs for convening this meeting.
We welcome the initiative to invite representatives from across the UN Secretariat.
We believe that data exchange between member states and departmental leadership provides an infallible platform to better align Secretariat operations with the evolving needs of the General Assembly.
In the context of the ongoing UN 80 initiative, this meeting even becomes more essential.
Fostering this level of engagement is vital to drawing stronger lines of synergy, strengthening coordination, and ensuring that our joint efforts directly reinforce the General Assembly's mandates.
Against this backdrop, our delegation wishes to ask the following questions to the distinguished representatives.
First, on the critical role of public outreach.
Communicating the tangible value of our work to the global public is essential for preserving trust in multilateralism.
How is the DGC adapting its global communication strategy to translate technical general assembly resolutions into clear, measurable outcomes for the global public.
Second, on leveraging data for impact.
Demonstrating concrete progress requires systemic follow up after action is taken.
How can Secretarat assist the General Assembly in building robust data driven frameworks to track and report on the actual implementation of resolutions post adoption.
Third, on system wide coordination.
Maximizing organizational impact requires close alignment across principal organs.
What concrete coordination mechanisms are currently being developed by the Secretariat to support the elimination of mandate overlap between the General Assembly, Ekso, and the Security Council.
To conclude, Indonesia reiterates its firm commitment to working constructively with all to build afteralize and impact driven General Assembly.
Thank you.
I thank the distinguished Representative of Indonesia, and I now give the floor to the distinguished representative of the Russian Federation, followed by El Salvador, then Cuba.
Distinguished co chair, we welcome the convening of today's meeting of the working group in the format of an interactive dialogue among member states and the Secretariat.
We believe that such a direct dialogue is useful from the standpoint of developing the efficiency of the work of the Secretariat and optimizing the agenda of the GA, especially in the liquidity crisis and the general overloaded nature of the body.
In this session, work was undertaken to implement Resolution 79 slash 327, which is a result of a compromise achieved during the last session.
And a number of initiatives that have been carried out have already cut the expenses, specifically as noted in the briefing by the USG on the DGACM.
There was a so called one gavel procedure that's already cut the time spent by the body on adoption of resolutions.
We believe that this is a useful practice.
Nonetheless, Going forward, such innovations should be carefully considered.
They need to adhere to the rules and procedures, multilingualism, the procedure of sovereign equality of member states as well, who have the prerogative to participate in the work of the General Assembly in full measure.
What's more, the process of revitalization should definitely not mean redistribution of authorities to the General Assembly to the detriment of other bodies such as EcoSC and the Security Council.
Just showing you one example There was a decision made to harshly limit speaking times, which just increased the tension in the working groups.
On the whole, lack of liquidity should not be used as a pretext for unilateral cutting of conference services or canceling meetings of charter based bodies or establishing one's own priorities.
Measures to overcome the liquidity crisis should continue to be considered by member states in the context of established procedure and should be agreed upon intergovernmentally.
And a key role in resolving the situation of the lack of resources is the full payment by states of their contributions.
Madam Co Chair, I have a question, and in asking it, I would endorse the comments delivered by the Delegate Algeriia speaking on behalf of the NAM.
I'd like to ask, what is the status of multilingualism in the context of the cuts? Thank you.
I thank the distinguished representative of the Russian Federation and I note your concerns and questions in the last one as well as it relates to multilingualism, and I will defer to the Secretariat on that one when they are presenting their answers to the delegates.
I now give the floor to the distinguished representative of El Salvador.
Thank you very much, Madam Co chair.
We thank the co chairs for their work and leadership to convene this meeting pursuant to the mandate established in paragraph 20 of Resolution 70 9327.
We wish to also thank the representatives of the Secretariat.
We take particular note of the difficulties that have often made it harder to implement the mandates of this resolution.
Now our questions are on conference services and My delegation notes with satisfaction, the continuous updating of the IGAD platform, which for us is very useful for preparation and following different meetings, consultations, plenary meetings, as well as the recent incorporation of the transcription platform that is an additional useful resource for us to follow the deliberations and consultations.
We also appreciate and note with satisfaction the work done In line with the mandate in paragraph 20 of Resolution 70 7335 on the revitalization of the General Assembly regarding the responsibility of the Secretariat to draw to the attention of states and subsidiary bodies instances of overlap with high level meetings of the General Assembly before adopting measures on proposals for general Assembly meetings on specific dates.
My delegation nevertheless does observe that while the mandate agreed is being fulfilled, there are still difficulties in promoting better organization of the planning calendar for these meetings, including the plenaries and the work of each of the six committees.
This continues to cause an overload for delegations to be able to attend all of them.
We'd like to know from the Secretariat what other effective measures you could adopt for member states to be able to as efficiently as efficiently as possible, comply with this and avoid duplication of meetings and overlap of meetings.
We'd also like to know we'd like some more clarification on how you will comply with the mandate of Paragraph 24 of the resolution.
This is a query that has also been raised by other delegations.
Thank you.
I'm the Distinguished representative of El Salvador and I now give the floor to the distinguished representative of Cuba, followed by Sri Lanka, then Israel, who will be the last speaker.
Thank you very much, Madam Co chair.
We thank you for calling this meeting and we also thank the different members of the Secretariat for their briefings.
That give us a general overview with precise data on the last session and this session and the implementation of the resolution on revitalization.
Distinguished Madam Co chair, distinguished members of the Secretariat.
We align ourselves with the statement made by the delegation of Algeriia on behalf of the non aligned movement.
Please allow me to begin by expressing our heartfelt thanks to the Secretariat for the huge efforts that they're making on a daily basis to ensure that the organization can continue to function and to provide support to member states in particularly complex circumstances.
We highly appreciate the commitment made by your staff.
Now, when it comes to the implementation of Resolution 70 9327, Cuba reiterates its commitment to its full implementation.
At the same time, for us, it's fundamental that its provisions be implemented in their contexts and within the limits expressly established by member states, avoiding expansive interpretations that could create procedural obstacles or restrictions that were not agreed.
In particular, the provisions on speaking time limits for statements, the presentation and consideration of draft resolutions, and other measures geared towards improving the working methods of the General Assembly.
These should not be interpreted as a restriction of the prerogatives of member states.
For us, it's also fundamental to ensure coherence between the different reform processes of the United Nations, particularly between the revitalization of the General Assembly and the UN 80 initiative.
We would be very grateful if you could tell us how the Secretariat plans to implement this coherence in practice and avoid unnecessary duplications.
For example, if a main committee body revises its working methods within the framework of the endeavors to revitalize the General Assembly, they should not demand an equivalent or additional process within the framework of the UN 80 initiative.
Furthermore, we must also ensure that the exceptions provided for in paragraph 22 of Resolution 70 9327 and paragraph 25 of resolution 8251 are fully respected.
We would be grateful if you could tell us what mechanisms the Secretariat plans to adopt to deal with the exclusive mandates for this review and to ensure that these exceptions are applied in a consistent manner.
Madam Co chair, we recognize that the current financial situation poses significant challenges for the organization and for the Secretariat.
We'd be grateful if you could go into further depth on these affairs, in particular on documentation, translation, interpretation, or of meetings, and conference services, something that we already received in advance from the different briefings that we just listened to.
For us, it's important that efficiency measures be implemented in a transparent, predictable way in consultation with member states in particular.
When they could have repercussions on the working methods of the General Assembly or on the ability of delegations to fulfill their responsibilities.
Cuba reiterates the fact that we stand ready to work constructively to make progress in the revitalization process on the basis of inclusion, transparency, efficiency, and full respect for the intergovernmental nature of the organization.
Thank you very much.
I thank the distinguished representative Cuba and I now give the floor to distinguished representative of Sri Lanka.
The Distinguished co chairs, we thank the co chairs for convening today's interactive dialogue and commend their ongoing leadership in revitalizing the work of the General Assembly.
We also thank the senior representatives of the Secretariat for their participation and for providing informative presentations.
Sri Lanka aligns with the statement delivered by the non aligned movement and wishes to add the following observations in its national capacity.
We welcome the adoption of Resolution 79 slash 327 on fifth September 2025 and the establishment of the working group on the strengthening and revitalization of the work of the General Assembly.
We see the consensus on this text as a demonstration of the membership's collective commitment to strengthen the Assembly as the chief deliberative and policymaking organ of the United Nations.
Sri Lanka highlights the ongoing challenge of achieving inclusive and equitable geographic representation within the Secretariat.
Despite repeated calls for progress, this issue remains unresolved and developing countries often raise it in intergovernmental forums.
Equitable geographic representation is essential to ensuring the secretariat's legitimacy and credibility as well as its capacity to effectively serve the interests of all members.
On the UN 80 initiative and reforms, Sri Lanka stresses that all reform processes, including the UN 80 initiative, must respect intergovernmental nature of these organization and involve full consultation with all members.
Conducting reforms outside intergovernmental processes may undermine their ownership and legitimacy.
In conclusion, Sri Lanka fully supports this working group's work and its goal of making the General Assembly stronger, more effective, and more efficient.
We are ready to work constructively with the Secretariat and other member states to ensure the revitalization agenda leads to real improvements in the Assembly's daily work even amid the current financial challenges the organization faces.
I thank you.
I thank the distinguished representative of Sri Lanka and I now give the floor to our final speaker, the Distinguished Representative of Israel.
Thank you very much, Madam Chair, for giving me the floor.
We would like to thank the co chairs for convening this discussion and the opportunity for this important dialogue.
We appreciate the Secretariat continued support to the General Assembly and for their detailed briefings this morning.
As we stand at a turning point for the United Nations, with renewed efforts to improve efficiency and new leadership on the horizon, we have an important opportunity to make the organization more efficient, effective, and representative of today's global landscape.
Israel sees great value in the important decisions the General Assembly will be called upon to take in the period ahead.
Hence, we would like to underline the importance of timely communication with member states on matters requiring action by the General Assembly.
Member states should be given sufficient notice and adequate time to consult with capitals, consider proposals, and meaningfully exercise the responsibilities entrusted to the Assembly.
The Assembly should not be placed in a position where limited notice would ever constrain its ability to deliberate fully.
Secondly, we underlined the importance of ensuring that decisions adopted by the General Assembly are effectively implemented and monitored.
While member states set the policy direction through resolutions, its success and implementation also depends on the strong coordination between member states and the organization.
The scheduling of high level meetings during high level week provides one such example.
In Resolution 79 slash 327, member states decided that beginning with the 81st session, general assembly mandated high level meetings convened during the high level week should be limited to a maximum of three.
Yet more than three high level meetings were subsequently mandated for the upcoming session.
We would therefore be interested to hear how coordination might be further strengthened in such cases, particularly where multiple mandates or processes may intersect.
UN 80 provided a unique opportunity to foster a culture of efficiency across the organization.
Ultimately, any improvement to the organization improves the general assembly.
Efficiency cannot be understood in terms of structures, staffing levels, or budget reductions.
It should also be reflected in the way that we work through greater discipline in the creation of meetings and mandates, avoiding duplication, better use of existing resources, and regularly reassessing whether established practices continue to serve their intended purposes.
UN 80 and revitalization cannot be a one time exercise.
We have only reviewed the select number of mandates, while much broader work remains to ensure that the organization as a whole is coherent, efficient, and fit for purpose.
If we are serious about meaningful reform, this effort must continue systematically beyond the current session with the same commitment applied across all areas of the organization's work.
Finally, revitalizing the United Nations means revitalizing for current times.
We appreciated the update this morning and encourage the organization to continue embracing digital innovation, including the responsible use of artificial intelligence and other emerging technologies.
We would like to highlight the positive example the UN transcripts platform sets.
We encourage continued investment in tools of this kind that can make the work of both UN personnel and member states more accessible, transparent, and efficient.
Israel remains committed to working together to find practical ways to strengthen the General Assembly and ensure that the United Nations is equipped to meet the needs of today.
Thank you.
I thank the Distinguished Representative of Israel and I thank all distinguished representatives for their interventions.
Based on their concerns or questions fielded during this session, I will now give the floor to miss Catherine Pollard, under Secretary-General for Management Strategy, Policy and Compliance, followed by Mr.
Ian Phillips, Director of News and Media of the Department of Global Communications and Mr.
Moses Abilen, under Secretary-General for General Assembly and Conference Management.
Thank you, Madam Co chair, and thank you to all the delegations for their comments.
There were comments from several delegations regarding equitable geographic distribution and geographic representation in the staff of the Secretariat as a whole.
Improving geographic representation of all member states continues to be a high priority of the Secretary-General in human resources management, and that is reflected in the progress that I had shared with you earlier.
There are several steps undertaken within every department, including, we do have in the compacts of every under Secretary-General.
The targets for filling new positions for 50% should be from candidates from member states.
The Secretariat through the Office of Human Resources, together with the departments also conducts outreach with member states, particularly targeting those that are underrepresented and with some member states, we also have specific projects and partnerships so that we will be able to access talent within that member state to apply for positions in the Secretariat.
Unfortunately, as I also mentioned in 2026, this has been a very difficult year in terms of the financial situation as member states all know, and we have had to limit filling of vacancies to only the most critical vacancies and we have generally suspended hiring.
And improvements in geographic distribution as in geographical post financed on the regular budget, really, those changes are impacted largely through external recruitment.
Since this year, we have had to limit external recruitment.
I would say that our efforts we have had a setback in our efforts, and we've not been able to replace staff who were retiring.
We will see what the financial situation looks like next year and we hope that there would be some improvement.
But I just want to reassure member states that the Secretariat takes this very seriously as a core value of the organization and every department internally does track the progress with geographic distribution on post financed in the regular budget and for non geographic positions, which are voluntary funding or other assessed resources such as peacekeeping operations, to have as wide a representation as possible.
I think I will stop there, Madam Chair.
Thank you, USD Pollard.
I will now ask Mr.
Ian Phillips, the Director of News and Media of the Department of Global Communications for his responses.
Thank you very much and thank you for the questions.
I certainly heard that there was a recurrent theme, which was multilingualism.
This is absolutely a core priority for DGC.
We did, of course, take a hit in terms of the amount of posts we lost under UN 80.
The news and media division, which is the heartbeat of multilingualism, had to abolish almost 25% of the posts.
But I want to reiterate that we're finding solutions.
We cannot do our job communicating around the world if we're doing it in one language.
Um, I'll get back to that topic in a moment.
To the distinguished delegate from Portugal, I want to again, thank you for Portugal's support of the news and media division.
I want to highlight one particular initiative with funding that is given to us, P funding.
We've been able to create a network of freelancers around the world in the Portuguese, in the usphone world, who are able to bring to life some of the topics that are discussed at the General Assembly.
I think that's really important.
It can be quite hard to connect with the public with a complex conversation in a GA debate hall.
We are obviously cover that, we stream it, we write about it, but to really connect to people, it's great if we can combine that with real people stories about the theme under discussion.
We're doing that increasingly and the ability to get input from the field, whether written stories or visuals, which we need a lot more of really enhances what we're trying to talk about today, how to enhance your work.
I really want to thank the Portuguese mission for supporting us because it has enabled us to create an extra dimension to our work.
In terms of AI, we are actively exploring AI solutions and as we all know, every month it's getting better and better.
But I do want to underline that it still takes significant resources.
This is a resource hungry effort.
We can't just trust AI to be able to capture everything accurately, so it does require language expertise.
It does require human verification and DGC and NMD, we are looking at strategic ways to realign our current resources.
We have a lot of linguistic expertise, but we also have a lot of pockets of linguistic expertise around different units around the news and media division.
My team is looking at ways to maybe consolidate that to leverage our language expertise and to be nimble enough to turn to whatever the challenge is.
If we know, for example, the Russian speakers are, it doesn't matter whether you are a Russian speaker on web TV or in social media or in UN news.
If we know the resources are there, we can leverage that to do whatever job might be required.
I think it's ambitious of us to think that we will go back to the status quo in terms of the amount of posts we have.
But if we can streamline our approach to our work, streamline all the many sections we have, all the many websites we have.
I think we perhaps have more resources than we realize, but that work is underway.
I would ask that missions and committees understand what we're trying to do here.
We're going to elaborate on it in coming weeks and months about the reforms we want to bring about.
Help us push it through because it will help us and it will also help you.
Let me think.
A to the delegate from Portugal, about what can be done in high level week.
I think often The issue with our content is discovery.
We're working very hard to create a lot of content, but does the world know it's there? We have many websites and it can be hard to find.
Any efforts that missions and countries can make to explain to the media but also to educational organizations and the general public that this resource is there, is really important and will help our work.
We are also concurrently looking at ways to consolidate our platforms to have a more user friendly interface with the public so they don't have to go searching and do Google search and hope that they'll find this content.
But anything you can do to underline this resources there and that it's free would help us.
Even though I run the news and media division, we are trying to um, put more of an emphasis on other audiences too.
We try and support the media, but we want to try and support educational organizations, students who are curious about topics in the world.
Just looking at high level week, there will be very significant discussions about pandemic preparedness and sea level rise, issues like that.
We're doing a lot of prep work for that, so we don't just cover the meeting on the day, but we create contextual work, it could be video explainers, it could be written explainers, it can be timelines of how the UN has got involved in these matters and significant success stories that we've been involved in.
All this is educational content that is evergreen.
We don't have to think of the new cycle where something appears and then disappears within 12 hours.
We're trying to create websites in a more streamlined way where that content will live on and where, for example, high school students or university students or members of the public who are interested can go find authoritative and interesting and visually strong information on those topics.
Help us communicate that that material is all there at everyone's disposal.
I promise it's going to get stronger and stronger in the next year or two.
I thank the delegate from Israel for mentioning the issue of transcripts.
We've done a lot of work in web TV to integrate automated transcripts using AI power tools.
Currently, and this actually will be the first high level where we will have transcripts and subtitles available in the six languages.
There's a slight delay in five of those.
It's just a resource issue.
We don't have the money to be able to provide simultaneous transcripts in the six languages, but you will see subtitles, automated captions in six languages taking the feed from the interpreter booth.
But if you want a transcript, you can get it in English, but at the moment, there is a delay at the end of the meeting.
Sorry to get technical, but when the video is rendered, we can then on demand produce transcripts in other languages.
It's in the six languages.
I wish it could be in more, but I know that a lot of delegations are very happy about this and saying it doesn't matter, they will take one of those languages and maybe translate it themselves.
The tools are all there for everybody.
That's a real breakthrough.
There is also another transcript stream in the UN.
There is a dedicated website that's not DGC, but it's using DGC tools such as web TV to create transcripts as well.
Going forward, we will look to try and bring these two efforts together in the spirit of consolidation.
On the issue raised by Switzerland about the digital handbook, I'm afraid I'm going to have to get back to you.
I don't have the exact answer that you require, but we're happy to refer back to you and the ACT group on that topic and I hope I address the questions.
Thank you very much.
I thank Mr.
Phillips of the Department of Global Communications Director.
I now give the floor to Mr.
Moses Abilen under Secretary-General for General Assembly and Conference Management.
Thank you, Co Chair.
On the questions raised by Distinguished Representative Alge on behalf of Nam, on paragraph 17 of the resolution 17 9327, I would like to inform the group that provisions of different General resolution on revitalization on the work of the General Assembly Over the years, we are producing the report on the work of the working group, which has attached also this report on the detailed information and implementation of different provisions.
In this regard also, the webpage of the Regization General Assembly has all the information.
From Secretariat side, we provide what you have done.
We cannot put anything further than that at this stage.
Co chairs, there are a number of references have been made on multilingualism and linguistic diversity.
Let me just give the following short remarks.
When there's a liquidity crisis and I have looked from 1980s until now some last 40 or more years, when there's a liquidity crisis in the organization, the first impacted area has been and is the multilingualism.
It is just a factual statement.
In order for me to show how it is impacted, look just following numbers.
In order for weekly in New York to provide all interpretation services, we should serve around 70 meetings.
We are servicing 50-55 meetings.
That's a basic thing.
What is the outcome of it? Instead of the 7,500 meetings on four duty stations, we are servicing 5,500.
2000 meetings were not served.
That's just from the interpretation point of view.
If I take the translation, if everything was okay, we would have produced 245 million words in all six languages in full duty stations.
We are going to end up producing 210 million words.
That's the gap.
It is not only less meetings or less documents, impact is also the backlog.
I have over 150 verbatim records from the General Assembly First Committee Disarnment Commission, which were not issued.
We just last week we finished issuance of the verbatim records of the first committee of the 79th session, and we are starting 81st session.
That's the gap, how the impact is happening.
And we concentrate, we put all our resources to in order to have what is the priority for the particular meeting to take place that the particular committee, commission or body concerned has the documents available in six languages.
The concept of the six weeks rule, it looks nice, but I don't think I have even looked into it, how we're doing the reports on six weeks.
But that's the reason our document processing statistics has gone down.
So that's where things are.
But one thing we ensured A that we issue all the documents simultaneously, all in six languages.
That's absolute requirement for everything that we do.
But as long as liquidity is there, multilingualism is going to be impacted and member states are going to fill it no matter what.
I hear complaints from the ambassadors, from the groups, from the chair.
Yes, every day is just at least two, three complaints I have from different angles, not only in New York, but in Geneva, Vienna Aoi.
On Question raised by the distinguished president of Algo on behalf of NAM, as well as the El Salvador raised about high level meetings during the high level week.
This delegates.
This all high level meetings are proposals of member states and adopted by the General Assembly.
Secretariat, I wish we had the power to stop it.
We just maximum would be allowed to inform the co chairs, facilitators, or the delegations concerned that there is such a provision in the revitalization resolution that should not be more than three.
Yes, that's maximum we can say.
Reaction from those communications from us, from the Secretariat of the General Assembly Economic Affairs Division, Some delegations take note what we are saying.
That's the end of the conversation.
Some delegations or the saying, please do not talk about it.
We are in a very delicate situation of the negotiations with the resolution or the last group would say, we don't want to secretary to be present when we finish this resolution.
That's how it is happening.
We don't have a role, we don't have a veto, we don't have anything.
You are discussing right now how come it was three and now you have five this year.
But you already made the decision to have five more next year.
You made already decisions.
Next year, this time it will be another regret why there is a five, it's already done.
That's where the reality is for the high level mix.
I will not go over the list of the items, what we have discussed.
On digital handbook, what my colleague has said and I will say that the issuance of digital handbook, it is the office of the PGA, which has been as you recall, co chairs in the previous resolution, which has to be adjusted in order to put the language the way that it will sound, who is responsible.
That's the reason.
Resolution, if you look, there is a footnote even explaining how it is done.
Secretariat does not have a role here.
On the issue of IGO platform, Cheers, IGO platform, it is just the enthusiasm and the initiative of my staff.
They felt that this will be useful and it was the third committee secretary who initiated that process.
Then when we presented first time, we saw it was very positive welcome by delegations.
We started moving slowly to EcoSoke other bodies.
If you look our liquidity measures, you will see the paragraph that all our technology projects will be on hold.
They are imposed.
It's not happening.
Security Council is very conservative of taking the new things.
A few things we have done, they delegate.
Slowly, as and when time comes, as I mentioned in my interrogatory remarks, we have done 25 bodies, more to come subject to availability resources, different versions, human or financial.
I Distinguished representative of Indonesia raised the issue on the track actual implementation of the resolution.
Implementation resolution is what is being discussed now in the context of the net working group or mandate implementation.
We as a secretaria, we are hoping we will get clear guidance exactly what member states are looking, what this next step will be, and there is a full I hope form that by mid December, such a provision is going to come, we will know exactly where it's going to be next step.
On the question or comments of the Russian Federation, but the rules and procedures, we do follow the rules of procedure as it stands, we as a Secretariat.
Of course, it is the always presiding officer makes the final determination his or her, but we as a Secretariat, we prepare based on the rules of procedure.
Issue of the speaking time.
Again, it is not secretarial activity, it is decided by the presiding officers and that's how it is.
I responded to issue of the multilingualism, much more in details.
On the issue of El Salvador, I did respond about a high levels week.
Dt I think for the number of meetings and the higher levels week comes to our attention.
The only thing we are going to the presiding officer, PJ, saying this particular day, Jay has agreed three or four meetings.
We don't have enough rooms even accommodate.
Would it be possible just to change the date? That's the maximum we can go.
That's what we are allowed to say.
And as you may have noticed this year, you move them on next following week on Tuesday and a few years ago they had to go to adopt a new decision to change the date.
That's what we have from our side, they can do.
I will stop here, Madam Chair.
Thank you.
I thank the Under Secretary-General for General Assembly and Conference Management, Mr.
Moses Ablaen.
I now give the floor to my fellow co chair, Ambassador Puta.
Thank you Ambassador Williams.
I think that's a good reflection always this dialogue that we have member states with the Secretariat.
It's also introspection on our part because some of the issues can indeed and should be addressed much more thoroughly by ourselves, member states in the committees.
I think the conversation on the high level meetings is the case in point and I remember discussions in the committees last fall.
When we also some member states raised the issue of limitations through the revitalization to three.
But nevertheless, the resolutions went ahead.
Luckily, I think the president of the General Assembly engaged in consultations in the general committee and then in discussion with member states.
Of course, the solution was to extend the week from seven days to nine days now.
The high level week is longer than it was.
Now, with this dialogue, I think we end the cycle as well.
This is the last meeting of the working group during this session.
It's a cycle that did not start at the beginning of this session.
It started about three sessions ago with the preparation for the resolution that was adopted in September last year, and now with this session, focusing on the implementation of the resolution.
Resolution 70 9327, I think, in general, is a benchmark in the work that we have as member states in in the General Assembly and the bodies of the General Assembly.
The working methods, we predated somehow the conversations on the UN 80, but they will take the same spirit of being more efficient, more effective, more coherent, and I think we made quite good progress.
We committed to promoting shorter resolutions, to reduce the frequency of the resolutions.
The language is still there.
I actually look forward and I would encourage member states to implement that throughout the committee season that will start shortly after the opening of the 81st session.
We want to avoid repetition of mandates.
We want to make sure that through our work, we know the parameters of those mandates and there is no need to replicate it.
The 81st session will be a test for us because the implementation of this resolution will be crucially important during the 81st session.
We have a moratorium on international, commemorations, international days, years, decades, you remember.
I did notice actually throughout this session that is coming to a close an accelerated pace of conversations and promoting resolutions.
But for two sessions, 81st and 82nd, there will be a moratorium.
Let's see how that goes.
The Resolution 70 9327 also provides an assessment at the end of the 82nd session and member states will reflect.
But it's important also to observe that important work.
The one given approach.
I'm very glad to see that you can quantify not only in the number of documents, words, minutes that we spend, but also, of course, that will have a financial impact in itself without compromising on the substance of the work of the member states.
It's a good introduction through this resolution.
We should not overlook that through this resolution also managed to amend a anachronistic rule that we've been maintaining for 80 years in our work, in the rules of procedure, which was the use of feminine pronouns and gender specific nouns for women in all six languages.
That's important.
It's important for all of us to be able to address a Madam President or Madam Chair in any of the formal or informal settings that we have.
Downside of this resolution and the first pillar, the working methods is indeed the high level meetings.
I'm taken aback a bit by what you are saying, Bellan that we already have five high level meetings decided for the 81st session.
We have to find a way as well.
Next year, of course, yes, for the 82nd.
Under the relevant authority of the General Assembly, I also have to say there is a positive trend encouraged both by this Resolution 70 9327 but also by the overall spirit of the UN 80.
We did notice a better interaction between the General Assembly, the Security Council, and the Eksoc.
The regular meetings between the presidents of those bodies benefits actually member states.
I heard some calls here today on probably better transparency or higher transparency.
There is always room to improve, but I think we are on a much better track.
The annual report of the Security Council, the General Assembly has been subject to a number of improvements as well.
The level of engagement with member states, among member states.
I think now we have a more predictable timetable for that as well.
The selection and appointment of the Secretary-General and executive heads is probably the most visible as we speak because the process of the selection for the Secretary-General is ongoing.
But it's important to note that the benchmarks and the parameters set out in operative paragraph 42 provide a clear process, a clear direction.
The sequence is very clear, and I think some of the additions this resolution benefit the process.
We codified the withdrawal process.
We also have the financial disclosure prerogative.
There is a structured roadmap for these discussions and engagement.
But more importantly, it's how we address the relationship between the Security Council and the General Assembly, each and every one with their specific role in appointing and selecting and appointing the Secretary-General and promoting and doing that in complementarity.
That's very much important.
Now, we all know we've been working quite hard together.
There is a delicate balance and compromising this operative paragraph 42 and we as member states are the guardians of the way this is implemented.
On the strengthening of the Office of the President of the General Assembly, there have been already a number of steps to ensure a smooth transition between the incoming and outgoing PGAs.
I think here there is a good practice also unfolding as we speak and the dis coordination between the two offices, the incoming and outgoing is also very much important.
I'm sure that we'll hear more in the next session when the working group will be meeting again.
Now, the implementation of the resolution is very much important and as I said, we've been through a transition year this session, some of the provisions already implemented.
There is a significant bulk of the implementation from the 81st session.
We also did provide the example of this working group.
We are not working in two year cycles, we are working in a three year cycle.
A resolution will not be presented every two years, will be presented every three years.
It's significant and I think member states will see the benefit of that because it will be revised at the 82nd session, if I'm not mistaken.
All in all, work in progress.
We may be at the end of this session for this working group, but the work continues and I think this group itself will have an important role in maintaining the direction of our conversations and the process of improving the working methods and the interaction between different bodies.
I also want to thank my fellow co chair Ambassador Williams.
I want to thank the Secretariat for their support and of course, the member states and the engagement we've been having through this group and being the last meeting, if there are no other comments, we may bring it to a close.
You want to add anything? Hello.
Gabel, thank you so much.
All the best.
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