Pakistan’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Ambassador Munir Akram, was elected unanimously as the President of the UN Economic and Social Council for a year (2020-2021).
The 54-member ECOSOC is the third principal organ, along with the General Assembly and Security Council, established in 1945 under the UN Charter to promote international economic cooperation and oversee all international economic organisations.
This is the sixth time that Pakistan has been elected as ECOSOC President, and the second time Mr Akram has been elected to this post, having served as ECOSOC President in 2005. The only other ambassador to have had this distinction was Juan Somavia of Chile, the former Director-General of International Labour Organisation (ILO).
The incoming ECOSOC President called for preferential access for developing countries to advanced technologies and for making the intellectual property regime “compatible with the SDGs”. The “digital revolution has opened vast opportunities” for the developing countries, not so much to “catch up” with the advanced countries, but to “leap frog” into a “new and modern development paradigm”.
Ambassador said he would work closely with the incoming President of the General Assembly’s 75th Session, Ambassador Volkan Bozkir of Turkey, who will be visiting Pakistan soon.
