Sixty-eighth session of the United Nations General Assembly

Sixty-eighth session of the United Nations General Assembly
Host country	United Nations
Dates	17 September 2013 – 15 September 2014
Venue(s)	United Nations Headquarters
Cities	New York City

The sixty-eighth session of the United Nations General Assembly opened on 17 September 2013. The President of the United Nations General Assembly was chosen from the GRULAC with Antigua and Barbuda's John William Ashe being the consensus candidate, thus bypassing the need for an election.

In December 2011, Antigua and Barbuda's UN Ambassador John William Ashe was chosen as the consensus candidate by all 33 GRULAC member states to be the president of the United Nations General Assembly, thus not necessitating an election. In opening remarks to the General Assembly, Ashe said: "The upcoming year will be pivotal for this Assembly as we seek to identify the parameters of the post-2015 development agenda. The magnitude of the task before us will require decisive action and the highest levels of collaboration and we must prove ourselves and our efforts to be equal to the enormity of the task. We simply cannot reach our development goals, or advance human well-being without addressing the needs and challenges of women and youth, while also making use of the contributions of the both. With some 1.4 billion people without reliable electricity; 900 million lacking access to clean water and 2.6 billion without adequate sanitation, action is urgently needed to address these persistent challenges. With so many initiatives in these three fields, let us try and draw upon and share the existing knowledge, while scaling up initiatives that have already worked in the areas of integrated water management, sustainable energy and sanitation services for the proposed post-2015 development agenda." Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon then said: "We will intensify our efforts to define a post-2015 development agenda, including with a single set of goals for sustainable development that we hope will address the complex challenges of this new era and capture the imagination of the people of the world, as the MDGs did. Syria is without doubt the biggest crisis facing the international community. The Assembly has a role and a voice in our efforts to resolve it and respond to the suffering."

As is tradition during each session of the General Assembly, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon will draw lots to see which member state would take the helm at the first seat in the General Assembly Chamber, with the other member states following according to the English translation of their name, the same order would be followed in the six main committees. This year Croatia was drawn to take the first seat.

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