India elected to UN Economic and Social Council with pledge to champion development

External Affairs Minister (EAM) S Jaishankar gave the assurance in an X post after Wednesday's election, "India remains committed to championing development issues and keep working to strengthen the ECOSOC."

United Nations: India has been elected to the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) for a three-year term starting next year with a commitment to championing development, getting 181 out of the 187 valid votes cast.

External Affairs Minister (EAM) S Jaishankar gave the assurance in an X post after Wednesday’s election, “India remains committed to championing development issues and keep working to strengthen the ECOSOC.”

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He thanked the countries that voted for India for their “overwhelming support and reposing their trust in us,” and congratulated the diplomats at India’s UN Mission for ensuring the nation’s election.

This will be at least the 18th term for India on the council, known as ECOSOC for short, having last completed a four-term run from 2008 to 2020.

ECOSOC is the main UN body with representation for all its 193 members that deals with sustainable development and economic matters.

ECOSOC has 54 members, a third of whom complete their terms every three years, and 18 seats came up for election.

The seats are distributed by region, and four seats for the Asia Pacific region were up for election this year.

China, whose term will end this year, ran for re-election and won with 180 votes.

Lebanon and Turkmenistan, each of which got 183, were also elected.

They were the only candidates in the race, and all were endorsed by the regional group.

The East Europe group saw some drama with Ukraine upstaging Russia, which was forced into a runoff after failing to get enough votes to win one of the three seats for the region in the first ballot.

Since the region did not come up with a slate for the three seats, there were five contestants for the three seats.

Ukraine, with 130 votes, and Croatia, with 140, were elected in the first round, having won two-thirds of the votes.

Russia, with 108, was forced into the runoff against its ally Belarus, which received 96 votes, after the lowest vote-getter, North Macedonia, was eliminated with 59 votes.

Twenty-three countries abstained in the runoff, lowering the two-thirds threshold, and Russia won with 115 votes to Belarus’s 46.

The US and Germany won by-elections to the ECOSOC because Italy and Liechtenstein resigned their seats.

India will join neighbours Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka, which are on the ECOSOC.