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UN General Assembly 74th Session

Special Coverage of the 74th General Debate
24 September-30 September 2019

As world leaders gather in New York in the coming days, the curtain will rise on the busiest diplomatic season of the year at United Nations Headquarters.

Here, UN News gives you a front row seat to all the action during the General Assembly’s annual high-level segment, known as the general debate. This year, the debate will run alongside a series of key summits and meetings, guided by the UN’s landmark Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), seeking to boost action on climate change and accelerate progress on sustainable development:
♦ 21 September – Youth Climate Summit;
♦ 23 September – Climate Action Summit and the High-level Meeting on Universal Health Coverage;
♦ 24 and 25 September – Sustainable Development Goals Summit;
♦ 26 September – High-level Dialogue on Financing for Development;
♦ 27 September – Small Island Developing States.

Ben Dotsei Malor/UN News

Media can play ‘pivotal role’ bringing a divided world together

It’s comfortable to endorse ideas similar to our own, but what’s the value of communicating between, rather than simply within communities? 

Editor of the BBC’s Crossing Divides multiplatform season, Emily Kasriel, was at UN Headquarters during high level week, and says that during times of charged conversation, the media can play a pivotal role in healing divisions. 

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Hamdullah Mohib, Chair of Delegation of Afghanistan, addresses the 74th session of the United Nations General Assembly’s General Debate. (30 September 2019)
UN Photo/Cia Pak

Millions of Afghans have ‘voted not just for a president, but also for democracy’, UN Assembly told

Just two days ago, some three million Afghans faced the threat of terrorism and headed to the polls, to “vote not just for a president, but also for democracy,” Hamdulla Mohib, Afghanistan’s National Security Adviser told the UN General Assembly on Monday, adding that no matter the outcome of the elections, “peace is and will remain the Government’s priority.”

Bocchit Edmond, Minister for Foreign Affairs of Haiti, addresses the general debate of the General Assembly’s 74th session.
UN Photo/Cia Pak

Haitian Foreign Minister calls for development reboot to close ‘striking gap’ between promises and action on ending poverty

The future of humanity hinges on full implementation of the 2030 Agenda, if we don't get there, “we may never see the world that ‘we the peoples of the United Nations’ have long been calling for,” Bocchit Edmond, the Minister for Foreign Affairs of Haiti, told the General Assembly, the Organization’s top deliberative body.