The 49th session: looking towards the UN of the future.

• Position: Includes related articles on United Nations General Assembly President Amara Essy and functions of the committees of the General Assembly

The forty-ninth session of the General Assembly, which opened on 20 September, was widely anticipated to be a productive and thought-provoking predecessor to the fiftieth anniversary of the United Nations, a watershed event in the life of the Organization. The gathering saw delegates look both back and ahead, Januslike, on the launching of a record number of high-profile peace-keeping operations worldwide and towards the anniversary celebrations in 1995, which would be marked by major conferences on economic and social development issues.

In redefining and bringing to fulfilment a renewed vision of development, Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali declared: "We can begin to get at the roots of conflict", and in the process create a new system of international cooperation and build enduring foundations for a secure, just and creative era for all humanity. That, he believed, was the primary mission of the UN in its second half-century.

"The year before us will be a time for reaffirmation and recommitment by all the world community to employ the United Nations more efficiently, effectively and responsibly across the widest range of global concerns", he declared.

Thus, the forty-ninth session opened at a time of renewed purpose, as the Organization sought to strike a balance between the long-term, interrelated goals developed in the Secretary-General's two ground-breaking reports: his 1992 "An Agenda for Peace", and the still-underconstruction "An Agenda for Development".

`An altered context'

Secretary-General Boutros-Ghali stated it simply in his 2 September annual report on the work of the Organization (A/49/1): "We must attend to the immediate problems of conflict, under all circumstances keeping in mind the aspects of development which must be strengthened."

He set out a basis for the deliberations and achievements of the session in describing a world with "an altered context", where the definition of security is no longer limited to questions of land and weapons, but rather has a broader meaning that includes the economic well-being, environmental sustainability, and protection of human rights.

His objective, he said, is "to correct the common misperception of the UN as an Organization dedicated primarily to peace-keeping", stressing that economic and social questions had long occupied the major part of UN efforts. That work was all the more important today, "precisely as conflicts are increasingly recognized to have economic and social origins". In the midst of efforts to contain and resolve immediate conflicts, "the UN is deepening its attention to the foundations of peace. which lie in the realm of development", he declared.

While some progress towards peace has been attained, Mr. Boutros Boutros-Ghali went on, there had been very little concerted action towards development. In his view, the world community must "redefine and bring to fulfilment the idea of development as the long-term solution to the root causes of conflict.

He recalled that a goal of his "Agenda for Development" (A/48/935) is to provide a comprehensive framework for thinking about the pursuit of development as a means of building foundations for enduring human progress. Peace, the economy, the environment, society and democracy are interlinked dimensions of development, with peace providing "the most secure context for lasting development". in attending to the sources of conflict through the pursuit of a "comprehensive vision of development, we have the opportunity to realize greater potential for all humanity than ever before"

In both mission and mandate, he said, the UN was uniquely suited to the task, encompassing all dimensions of the development challenge. As a forum for...