The Specialized Agencies and the United Nations: Progress Report II

Since the preparation in August 1947 of the first part of this report, three significant developments affecting the scope and character of United Nations–specialized agency relations have taken place. First, the “family” of specialized agencies, in being and in prospect, has substantially increased in size and variety. Second, the regional machinery of the Economic and Social Council has been expanded by the establishment of economic commissions for Asia and the Far East (ECAFE) and for Latin America (ECLA), with the probability that a similar commission for the Middle East will be authorized before the end of 1948. Together with the Economic Commission for Europe (ECE), set up in the spring of 1947, these subsidiary instrumentalities of the Council will be concerned with a wide range of reconstruction and developmental activities which bear directly upon various functions of FAO, ILO, Bank, Fund, and ITO and which, in addition, introduce a further element of complexity in the task of coordinating international economic programs. The third development, important from the procedural standpoint, was the action taken by the General Assembly at its second regular session in November 1947, and by the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) at its sixth session in March 1948, in spelling out methods for treating the budgets and reports of the specialized agencies.