The UN General Assembly's yearly meeting of world leaders is underway, and with it comes a flurry of acronyms, abbreviations, and technical terms. Let's break down some key vocabulary to understand what it means:
UNGA: United Nations General Assembly's ‘High-level Week,’ when presidents, prime ministers, monarchs, and other top leaders of all 193 UN member countries are invited to speak to the world and each other.
General Debate: The centerpiece of the week, it gives each country's leader (or a designee) the mic for a state-of-the-world speech. Speakers are given 15 minutes to share their opinion on the planet's biggest issues and hotspots, spotlight domestic accomplishments and needs, air grievances, and project statesmanship.
Bilateral: Private meetings between high-ranking officials of two countries.
Ministerial: Applies to meetings of cabinet-level officials, such as foreign ministers, from different countries.
Security Council: The UN's most powerful component, responsible for maintaining international peace and security. The council has powers to enact binding resolutions, impose sanctions and deploy peacekeeping troops.
P5: The Security Council's five permanent members with veto power. They are China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States.
E10: The Security Council's 10 elected, non-permanent members. The General Assembly elects them for two-year terms in seats allocated by region.
G77: Stands for the “Group of 77 and China,” a developing countries interest group that formed within the UN in 1964. The group now has 134 members.
COP30: A major UN climate conference.
1.5 Degrees: A crucial climate threshold. Under the 2015 Paris climate accord, countries agreed to work to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) over pre-industrial times.
Initials
SDGs: The UN's 'sustainable development goals,' which range from combating climate change to eliminating hunger and poverty to achieving gender equality.
SIDS: At the UN, this stands for some 39 small island developing states.
Brics: A developing-economies coalition that initially included Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. It has since added others, including Indonesia, Iran, Egypt, Ethiopia and the United Arab Emirates.
NGO: Non-governmental organisation
LDCs: Very poor nations that are known at the UN as ‘least-developed countries.’ Forty-four nations currently meet the criteria.
IFIs: International financial institutions, including the so-called Bretton Woods institutions — the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, which were established at a 1944 UN conference in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire.
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