UNITED NATIONS, (CMC):
THE UNITED Nations General Assembly on Tuesday elected Jamaica among six other countries to the newly-created Peace-building Commission's Organisational Committee. The other committee members are Chile, El Salvador, Egypt, Burundi, Fiji and Croatia.
Members of the committee would serve for renewable terms of two years, beginning on the day of its first meeting.
By the drawing of lots, the General Assembly decided that Jamaica and Croatia would serve an initial period of one year.
With Tuesday's election, the 31-member Organisational Committee, a standing body respon-sible for developing its own rules of procedure and working methods, was fully constituted.
The other categories of members having already been selected or elected from the Security Council, the Economic and Social Council, major troop-contributing countries and top financial contributors.
PEACE-BUILDING COMMISSION
The other members of the Organisational Committee are China, Denmark, France, Russian Federation, United Kingdom, United Republic of Tanzania, United States, Angola, Belgium, Brazil, Guinea-Bissau, Indonesia, Poland, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Ghana, India, Nigeria, Pakistan, Germany, Italy, Japan, Netherlands and Norway.
The notion of a Peace-building Commission was first proposed in 2004 by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan's High-Level Panel on Threats Challenges and Change.
In his 2005 report, 'In Larger Freedom', Annan envisioned the commission as an inter-governmental advisory body, which could marshal resources at the disposal of the international community to advise and propose strategies for post-conflict recovery.
Its focus would be on reconstruction, institution-building and sustainable development in countries emerging from conflict.
