UNITED
NATIONS

                                        Distr.
                                        LIMITED

                                        E/1996/L.24
                                        16 July 1996

                                        ORIGINAL:  ENGLISH

Substantive session of 1996
New York, 24 June-26 July 1996
Agenda item 10

                NON-GOVERNMENTAL ORGANIZATIONS

   Draft decision submitted by the President of the Council
            on the basis of informal consultations

                Non-governmental organizations

    The Economic and Social Council, reaffirming the
importance of the contributions of non-governmental
organizations to the work of the United Nations, and taking
into account the contributions made by non-governmental
organizations to recent international conferences,

    Decides to recommend that the General Assembly examine, at
its fifty-first session, the question of the participation of
non-governmental organizations in all areas of the work of the
United Nations, in the light of the experience gained through
the arrangements for consultation between non-governmental
organizations and the Economic and Social Council.

                             -----
[Note: When this draft decision was adopted by the Economic
and Social Council, the President of the Council, Jean-Marie
Kacou Gervais (Côte d'Ivoire), made the following
interpretative statement, which was to become part of the
official record: "It is the understanding of the Economic and
Social Council that this recommendation contained in paragraph
2 of draft decision E/1996/L.24 falls within the competence of
the General Assembly as set forth in Article 10 of the United
Nations Charter."]