ACC action on CCAQ reports

(1) As stated in section l.2, para. (3), CCAQ recommendations normally require ACC approval if they concern matters of policy or principle. The regular published reports of ACC are made to the Economic and Social Council. Since the Council is not normally concerned with administrative matters, the ACC reports before l963 frequently contained no indication that ACC had approved those CCAQ recommendations which required its approval. At the second part of the 22nd session (July 1961: CO-ORDINATION/R.373, para. 33) FAO reported difficulties as a result of this fact. CCAQ agreed that henceforth in submitting its report to ACC it would append a statement of the CCAQ proposals which ACC was being asked to approve, drafted in the form of an ACC approval. If ACC then wished to approve it, the statement would be issued by ACC as a public document recording its decisions on important administrative matters, particularly those to come before legislative bodies.

(2) At the 24th session (March 1963: CO-ORDINATION/R.430, para. 67) it was noted that ACC reports still contained no explicit approval of some actions by CCAQ. There was then an exchange of correspondence between the Secretary of CCAQ and the Secretary of ACC intended to ensure that in future there would always be a record of ACC's approval. CCAQ agreed that the Handbook should contain references to this recorded approval.

(3) ACC's approval of the recommendations of CCAQ at its 24th session (March 1963) was notified to organizations on behalf of the Chairman of ACC in UN letter OE 323/1(36) dated 24 May l963. The more important points were included in ACC's 28th report to ECOSOC (E/3765); reference is made to these in the sections of the Handbook dealing with the specific matters concerned.

(4) ACC's approval of the recommendations of CCAQ at its 25th session (April 1964) is recorded in CO-ORDINATION/SR.37/2/Rev.1.

(5) At its 26th session (March 1965: CO-ORDINATION/R.488, para. 3) CCAQ suggested that ACC might wish to consider omitting purely administrative matters from its report to ECOSOC. The Preparatory Committee of ACC recognized that treatment of both programme and administrative matters in a single report gave rise to difficulties in organizations where different bodies were concerned with the two subjects. It agreed, therefore to examine the question of possible changes in the form of the ACC report on administrative matters (CO-ORDINATION/R.500, para. 38).

(6) The approval of ACC for the substantive recommendations made by CCAQ at its 26th session was notified to the Secretary of CCAQ by the Secretary of ACC. Organizations were informed on 21 June 1965 (MUN/289/65).

(7) At its 27th session (March 1966: CO-ORDINATION/R.532, para. 21) CCAQ agreed to drop the suggestion (see para. (5) above) that the ACC report to ECOSOC should contain no reference to administrative matters. It understood, however, that the Preparatory Committee of ACC would not itself normally re-open the substance of the drafts which CCAQ would prepare for the relevant section of the ACC report (see CO-ORDINATION/SR.41/2 and SR.41/2, Corr.1). At the same session (CO-ORDINATION/R.532, para. 9-23) CCAQ proposed other procedural changes intended (a) to reduce the amount of CCAQ business which had to be discussed by ACC in committee, without affecting the right of any executive head to require such discussion where he felt it necessary; (b) to facilitate the disposal of CCAQ business through working parties.

(8) The report of the 27th session was approved by ACC at its 41st session (l966), with the exception of the proposals regarding future procedures and the status of certain reports to ICSAB (that is, the proposals in para. 7 and paras. 9-23 of CO-ORDINATION/R.532). These were further examined by ACC at its 42nd session (l966) (see CO-ORDINATION/R.566 and 566/Add.l; R.571 (paras. 10-16) and R.576 (paras. 7(ii) and 8)). A compromise was then reached by which for a trial period of one year:

(a) those organizations which requested ACC approval for administrative measures would make a special effort to limit the number of such cases to the absolute minimum.

(b) other organizations would acquiesce in the formal procedure required for this purpose;

(c) the secretariats of CCAQ and ACC would co-operate in doing everything possible to ensure that these formalities were accomplished with a minimum of difficulty for the members of ACC, the Preparatory Committee and CCAQ;

(d) agreements reached at the annual sessions of CCAQ would not ordinarily be implemented until after the following session of ACC.

(9) At its 28th session (March 1967: CO-ORDINATION/R.604, paras. 12-13) CCAQ agreed that this procedure should be satisfactory, though there might still be difficulties over the timing of sessions.

(10) Those recommendations of CCAQ's 28th session which required ACC approval received that approval at the 43rd session of ACC (1967) (CO-ORDINATION/R.616).

(11) At its 50th session (March 1979) CCAQ(FB) noted that according to decisions taken by ACC on restructuring its subsidiary machinery, the Organizational Committee, the two components of CCAQ and the two components of CCSQ would report directly to ACC and would - without prejudice to the authority of ACC itself - be given responsibility for dealing with, and agreeing at their level on, most of the questions coming before them. Their decisions would be considered final unless objected to by any executive head within 30 days (ACC/1979/R.11, para. 54).