SDG Summit and GA revitalization - PGA Spokesperson's Briefing

Highlights:
CLIMATE CHANGE The President of the General Assembly, Csaba Kőrösi's is calling on the international community to stop climate change. In a new message, the President calls for action from Governments, the private sector, civil society groups, scientists, and regular people – saying "it's all our responsibility to act to stop climate change. "With the SDG Summit on the horizon – on 18 and 19 September – President Kőrösi is urging Member States and all attending stakeholders to "come with concrete proposals and transform the way" they do business. Quote "Don't talk a lot of hot air. We have enough of that. "You will have the full message later today. DSG MEETING Still on the topic of the SDG Summit…This afternoon, President Kőrösi will be meeting with Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed. The focus will be on preparations for the SDG Summit and the High-level Dialogue on Financing for Development. TUESDAY GA Looking to tomorrow…At 10AM in the Trusteeship Council, Member States will hold a plenary GA meeting. They are expected to take action on a draft resolution related to the BBNJ – the Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction. They will then take action on a draft resolution related to the commemoration of the 125th anniversary of the Permanent Court of Arbitration.GA REVITALIZATION And I wanted to highlight that the next episode of the OPGA Fellows' podcast is out. The fifth episode is about General Assembly revitalization. You know that Security Council reform is underway, you might not have realized that there is also a work stream that has been working on reforming the General Assembly. Our Fellow from Cuba, Aimé Triana spoke with the co-facilitators of the Ad Hoc Working Group on the Revitalization of the General Assembly, which is just a very fancy way of saying, the process of reforming the General Assembly. The co-facilitators are Ambassadors Egriselda López, the Permanent Representative of El Salvador, and Ambassador Mitch Fifield, in his capacity as the Permanent Representative of Australia. It's a fun podcast. The Ambassadors are very frank. The podcast is in English and in Spanish. They touch on many different topics. One of them is the language used. This is a topic that you can all relate to. Ambassadors discuss the need to explain what the UN does and how it works in simple terms, not quote "bureaucratic sludge". They also discuss gender balance. Not just more women Ambassadors, or PGAs or SGs, but also just the wording itself. For example the GA rules of procedure refer to the PGA and the SG as a "he" and the chairperson as a "he" and not a "chairman." So you'll hear from the Ambassadors on that. Also about how they negotiated among 193 Member States, and what it's like for Ambassadors to negotiate with each other, then with their capitals. The resolution on the GA revitalization was adopted at midnight on the International Day of Women in Diplomacy which is on 24 June. And even if you don't listen to this podcast now, tuck it and the transcript away, because the Fifth Committee will be discussing it this fall, and it might be helpful as background.

Office of the Spokesperson for the General Assembly President