Mission Statement
The Office for ECOSOC Support and Coordination (OESC) in the Department of Economic and Social Affairs provides substantive support to the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) and the General Assembly.
The Office assists ECOSOC in the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development by fostering debate and innovative thinking, promoting consensus on ways forward, and coordinating efforts to achieve internationally agreed goals. It also helps in the follow-up to major UN conferences and summits.
Policy Coordination
The Office helps to coordinate ECOSOC's work to ensure coherence in the implementation, follow-up and review of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. In this respect, it oversees coordination of the Council's annual session and related analytical work, which culminates in the ECOSOC High-level Segment each July, including the ministerial component of the High-level Political Forum. The Office also supports ECOSOC by convening multi-stakeholder responses to emerging issues of relevance to the new development Agenda. To foster integrated approaches to the pursuit of sustainable development, the Office is responsible for coordinating the ECOSOC Integration Segment, which brings together the work of the ECOSOC and UN system to support Member States. In fulfilment of its mandates and roles in coordination and integration, the Office also promotes coherence between ECOSOC and the General Assembly, providing support to the Economic and Financial (Second) Committee of the General Assembly.
Non-Governmental Organizations
The Office actively engages UN agencies and civil society in charting common courses of action. One of the priorities of OESC is the effective servicing of the Committee on NGOs. OESC supports an ever increasing number of NGOs applying for ECOSOC consultative status and facilitates these requests for review by the Committee through the Integrated Civil Society Organizations System.
ECOSOC and Interorganizational Cooperation
The Office is tasked with the responsibility of strengthening the work of ECOSOC by promoting multi-stakeholders participation, including, in particular the private sector, foundations, academia and youth in support of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. It supports the organization and preparations of the Coordination and Management Meetings of ECOSOC by enhancing the participation of major stakeholders in the work of the Council. The Office acts as a focal point at the United Nations Secretariat for facilitating coordination among United Nations specialized agencies, funds and programmes and with the Bretton Woods institutions.
The Office also provides advice to the ECOSOC Bureau on strengthening its relations with the Peacebuilding Commission and the Security Council with a view to promoting an integrated approach to peace and development. It also supports the work of the Ad Hoc Advisory Group on Haiti. The Office also identifies and organizes meetings of ECOSOC on emergency issues by bringing together all relevant stakeholders for open dialogues in the Council.
The Office is responsible for conducting outreach on the work of ECOSOC by involving traditional press and social and multimedia platforms.
Development Cooperation Policy
The Office reviews trends and progress in international development cooperation and engages the range of actors in inclusive, evidence-based and balanced global policy dialogue, in its role as Secretariat of the ECOSOC Development Cooperation Forum. The Office serves as a trusted and balanced source of information and analysis on South-South cooperation and supports exchanges among Southern partners on their development cooperation policies and practices. It carries out, together with UNDP, the Global Accountability Survey of progress in national mutual accountability for development cooperation for better sustainable development results. The Office supports knowledge sharing and mutual learning on monitoring, review and accountability for development cooperation in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and Addis Ababa Action Agenda on Financing for Development.
The Office supports and coordinates the ECOSOC Segment on Operational Activities for Development where Member States provide overall coordination and guidance for operational activities for development of UN funds and programmes on a system-wide basis. In this regard, the office provides extensive substantive support, including through surveys, field missions, analysis and system-wide consultations for the preparation of the Secretary-General's report on the Quadrennial Comprehensive Policy Review (QCPR). The QCPR is the mechanism through which the General Assembly assesses the effectiveness, efficiency, coherence and impact of UN operational activities for development and establishes system-wide policy orientations for the development cooperation and country-level modalities.
To ensure that the UN development system is in line with the needs and priorities of the 2030 Agenda, and to inform the QCPR process which will guide the operational implementation of the 2030 Agenda, the Office supports Member States' discussions in the ECOSOC Dialogue on the longer-term positioning of the UN development system through analytical, organizational and convening support.
Contact
Office for ECOSOC Support and Coordination
Department of Economic and Social Affairs
United Nations Secretariat Building
405 East 42nd Street
New York, NY 10017, USA
E-mail: ecosocinfo@un.org