The United Nations Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions met for the first time at the headquarters of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) in Santiago, Chile, on 6 and 7 February. The purpose of the meeting was to review its regular work programme and to hold discussions with the regional commission’s senior officers.
The Committee’s ten-person delegation was led by its Chairman, the Mexican diplomat Carlos Ruiz Massieu, and by its Vice-Chairman, Babou Sene of Senegal. They were received at ECLAC by Executive Secretary Alicia Bárcena, Deputy Executive Secretary Antonio Prado, and Deputy Executive Secretary for Management and Programme Analysis Raúl García-Buchaca.
In welcoming the delegation, the Executive Secretary noted that ECLAC was the only organization of the United Nations Secretariat with its permanent headquarters in a Latin American or Caribbean nation. Alicia Bárcena also gave an overview of the Commission’s work in promoting the region’s economic, social and environmental development and of its status as a public policy think-tank that enjoys the recognition and esteem of the Member States and the academic sector.
The Advisory Committee, known by the acronym ACABQ, is a committee of experts made up of 16 members elected by the General Assembly for three-year terms on the basis of a broad geographical representation. Its members serve in a personal capacity and not as representatives of Member States. The Committee elects its own Chairman and Vice-Chairman.
Other members of the Committee who attended the meeting at ECLAC included Conrod Hunte of Antigua and Barbuda, Dietrich Lingenthal of Germany, David Traystman of the United States, Tesfa Alem Seyoum of Eritrea, Fernando de Oliveira Sena of Brazil and Ihor Humennyi of Ukraine. Also present were Shari Klugman, the Committee’s Executive Secretary, and Jutta Rating, Administrative Assistant for Conference Services.
The Committee holds three periods of sessions a year, lasting a total of between nine and ten months, and its programme of work is determined by the requirements of the General Assembly and the other legislative bodies to which it reports.
The Advisory Committee’s main functions include examining and reporting on the budget submitted by the Secretary-General to the General Assembly; advising the General Assembly about any administrative and budgetary matters referred to it; examining, on behalf of the General Assembly, the administrative budgets of the specialized agencies and proposals for financial arrangements with those agencies; and examining the auditors’ reports on the accounts of the United Nations and of the specialized agencies and reporting back to the General Assembly thereon.
