Eighteen countries elected to serve on UN Economic and Social Council

The General Assembly today elected 18 members to the key United Nations forum tasked with discussing international economic and social progress.

Australia, Cameroon, China, Ecuador, Finland, Gabon, Hungary, Latvia, Malawi, Mexico, Nicaragua, Norway, Pakistan, Qatar, Republic of Korea, Russia, Senegal and the United Kingdom were elected, and in some cases re-elected, to serve on the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC).

The Council, comprising 54 members elected by the General Assembly, meets yearly to further economic and social cooperation and development. Those elected today will begin their three-year terms on 1 January 2011.

The other current members of the ECOSOC are Argentina, Bahamas, Bangladesh, Belgium, Canada, Chile, Comoros, Côte d’Ivoire, Egypt, Estonia, France, Germany, Ghana, Guatemala, Guinea-Bissau, India, Iraq, Italy, Japan, Malta, Mauritius, Mongolia, Morocco, Namibia, Peru, Philippines, Rwanda, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saudi Arabia, Slovakia, Spain, Switzerland, Ukraine, United States, Venezuela and Zambia.

Among the many issues discussed in the ECOSOC is progress in reaching objectives such as the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), eight targets for tackling poverty, hunger and other social ills by 2015, as well as international development cooperation and the global financial situation.

ECOSOC’s week-long high-level segment this year featured the Development Cooperation Forum, which centred on development cooperation in times of crises, the Annual Ministerial Review, which focused on gender equality and the empowerment of women, and a policy dialogue on the state of the world economy.