Discuss the role of Asia Pacific Countries under United Nations.
Answers
The United Nations Regional Groups are the geopolitical regional groups of member states of the United Nations. Originally, UN member states were unofficially grouped into five geopolitical regional groups. What began as an informal means of sharing the distribution of posts for General Assembly committees has taken on a much more expansive role. Depending on the UN context, regional groups control elections to UN-related positions, on the basis of geographic representation, as well as coordinate substantive policy, and form common fronts for negotiations and voting.
The groupings have changed over time. From the founding of the United Nations until 1966, the regional groups were: British Commonwealth, Eastern Europe and Asia, Latin America, Middle East and Western Europe. In 1966, in response to changes in the UN's membership, decolonisation and strategic realignment, the groups were reorganised as: Asia, Eastern Europe, Africa, Latin America and Caribbean, and Western Europe and Others. In 2011, the Asia Group was renamed Asia-Pacific.
As of May 2014, 192 of the 193 UN member states are divided into five regional groups:[1]
the African Group, with 54 member states
the Asia-Pacific Group, with 53 member states
the Eastern European Group, with 23 member states
the Latin American and Caribbean Group (GRULAC), with 33 member states
the Western European and Others Group (WEOG), with 28 member states, plus 1 member state (the United States) as an observer state.