A/RES/59/265
I
Calendar of conferences and meetings
1.
Approves the draft revised calendar of conferences and meetings of the
United Nations for 2005, as submitted by the Committee on Conferences, 7 taking
into account the observations of the Committee, and subject to the provisions of the
present resolution;
Authorizes the Committee on Conferences to make any adjustments to
2.
the calendar of conferences and meetings for 2005 that may become necessary as a
result of actions and decisions taken by the General Assembly at its fifty-ninth
session;
Notes with satisfaction that the Secretariat has taken into account the
3.
arrangements referred to in General Assembly resolutions 53/208 A, 54/248, 55/222,
56/242, 57/283 B and 58/250 concerning Orthodox Good Friday and the official
holidays of Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha, and requests all intergovernmental bodies to
observe those decisions when planning their meetings;
Notes the outcome of the consultations between the Governing Council
4.
of the United Nations Human Settlements Programme and the Commission on
Sustainable Development to avoid the overlap between the sessions of the Council
and the Commission, and decides to reflect the results of those consultations in the
revised calendar of conferences and meetings for 2005;
Decides that, in future, there should be an intervening period of at least
5.
two weeks after the closing of the sessions of relevant intergovernmental bodies and
the beginning of the session of the Commission on Sustainable Development, in
accordance with the multi-year programme of work of the Commission, and
encourages such intergovernmental bodies and the Commission to closely
coordinate meeting dates and programmes of work so as to avoid overlap between
sessions;
II
A.
Utilization of conference-servicing resources and facilities
1.
Notes that the overall utilization factor at the four main duty stations in
2003 increased to 77 per cent, and encourages the bureaux and secretariats to meet
the benchmark;
Requests the Committee on Conferences to continue to consult with those
2.
bodies that have consistently utilized less than the applicable benchmark figure of
their allocated resources of the past three sessions with a view to making
appropriate recommendations in order to achieve the optimum utilization of
conference-servicing resources, and urges the secretariats and bureaux of bodies that
underutilize their conference-servicing resources, with the assistance of the
Department for General Assembly and Conference Management of the Secretariat,
to consider changes to their programme of work, as appropriate, based on previous
patterns for recurring agenda items, with a view to making improvements in their
utilization factors;
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7
2
Official Records of the General Assembly, Fifty-ninth Session, Supplement No. 32 (A/59/32), annex II.