India Re-Elected to UN Economic And Social Council With 183 Votes
India Re-Elected to UN Economic And Social Council With 183 Votes
India recently got re-elected to the UN Economic and Social Council after having won re-elections to the UN human rights council body. India received 183 votes making it the country to be re-elected with the most number of votes in the Asia Pacific group following Japan and Pakistan who scored 181 votes each. The 193 member UN General Assembly conducted the polls.
India’s term at UN’s ECOSOC was scheduled to close this year and it has now been re-elected for a 3 year term commencing January 1st, 2015. A majority of 2/3rd or 124 votes are needed for a country to win a seat during the election. The UN General Assembly elected 18 members to the UN Economic and Social Council. The 18 newly elected members are: Argentina, Austria, Brazil, Burkina Faso, Estonia, France, Germany, Ghana, Greece, Honduras, India, Japan, Mauritania, Pakistan, Portugal, Trinidad and Tobago, Uganda and Zimbabwe.
The 54 members of ECOSOC are elected for three consecutive years each year by the UN General Assembly. Seat allocation is based on geographical representation and it is as follows. 14 seats have been allocated to the African States. Around 11 seats have been allocated to the Asia states while 6 are for Eastern European states, 10 are for the Latin American and Caribbean states while 13 belong to Western European and remaining states. India was also recently elected to the 47 member UN Human Rights Council for the year 2015-2017.
The current term of India at the human rights body is scheduled to end at December 31, 2014. India competed for votes in the Asia Pacific group where 4 seats were ready for election. Indian Ambassador to the UN, Asoke Mukerji said that the electoral victories demonstrate that India’s standing in the UN family is a “high one” and the massive re-election win shows it is a “useful indicator” for "what India stands for in the international community is not only a perception of India but is backed-up by a vast majority of the UN membership.”
Of the 18 members elected, the ones who were re-elected were Austria, Burkina Faso, France, Germany, Greece, India, Japan and Portugal.
Prior to the elections, the Assembly also made a declaration regarding the 13 states elected for the Committee for Programme and Coordination which is the subsidiary organ of the Council and the Assembly for planning and coordination. The 13 states were Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea, Namibia, Iran, Armenia, Belarus, Ukraine, Brazil, Cuba, Uruguay, Venezuela and Italy. ECOSOC is one of the 6 main organisations which coordinates and manages policy review and dialogue as well as recommendations on ecological, environmental and social issues besides delineating development goals.
