The Chairman, Javier Valladares, will open the Forty-fourth Session of the Executive Council at 09.30 h in Room IV on Tuesday 21 June 2011. He will welcome all participants and refer to the documentation prepared for this session of the IOC Executive Council. The Council will, in accordance with Rule of Procedure No. 12(2), act as the Steering Committee for the Twenty-sixth Session of the Assembly.

The Executive Council will be invited to adopt the Agenda of the present session (doc. IOC/EC-XLIV/1 prov.; Annex I to the summary report).

  IOC/EC-XLIV/1 Prov.: Provisional agenda (EC-XLIV)   IOC/EC-XLIV/2: Annotated Agenda (EC-XLIV)

The Executive Council will be invited to designate the Rapporteur for the present session after considering the proposal made by the Chairman.

Under Rules of Procedure 8, 9 and 11.2, dealing with the preparation of the agenda for this Assembly, no request for a supplementary item was received at the Secretariat by 22 April 2011, two months before the date of the opening of the 26th session of the Assembly. In May 2011 WMO at its Sixteenth Congress approved the participation in an International Polar Decade to begin in 2015 and invited other relevant international organizations and programmes, notably the IOC, to participate in a consultative process. Considering the development is important for the IOC and the tight schedule for implementation, the Officers and the Executive Secretary wish to propose the inclusion of a supplementary item on the agenda for the Assembly under High Level Objective 2 (under item 6.) This item would deal with the cooperation with the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) in the preparation to the International Polar Decade (IPD). A written statement of justification for this late submission entitled “International Polar Decade (IPD)” has been prepared in annex to this annotated agenda. As per Rule of Procedure 8.3, the Executive Council will examine the proposed supplementary item and the relevant documentation and decide on its inclusion in the revised provisional agenda (new item 6.4) and timetable that will be tabled at the opening of the Assembly.

The Chairman will remind the Executive Council that, in the designation of the three Statutory Committees for the Assembly, it may submit proposals on their composition, but that the ultimate decision as to that composition, including the Chairpersonship of each Statutory Committee, remains entirely with the Assembly. He will then invite Member States to declare their wish to participate in the Statutory Committees bearing in mind the need to ensure an appropriate linguistic and geographic balance within each Committee. Pursuant to Rule of Procedure No. 12(2) the Executive Council, acting as the Steering Committee of the Assembly, will propose the Chairperson and Members of the Nominations Committee for the Assembly. The Executive Council will also propose the Chairperson and Members of the Resolutions Committee for the Assembly. The Executive Council will further propose the composition of the Financial Committee under the Chairpersonship of Dr Savithri Narayanan (Canada), Vice-chair. This Committee will be open-ended with interpretation provided in English and French. Four meetings of the Committee are scheduled from Friday 24 to Tuesday 28 June with an optional meeting on 29 June.

In order to ensure a smooth running of the Assembly, the Executive Council will consider and decide on the establishment of: an open-ended Drafting group on the IOC Declaration for Rio+20 (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 4–6 June 2012 (item 4.9)); An open-ended Drafting group on two GOOS draft resolutions: (i) Strengthening and Streamlining GOOS and (ii) Programme of Action for GOOS 2012–2013 (item 6.1).

The Executive Council will be invited to consider the revision of the timetable for the Assembly, taking into consideration the inclusion of the supplementary item, the reporting of sessional working groups and statutory committees in plenary and scheduled invitation of speakers. It will also be invited to adopt the Revised Provisional Timetable as is or as amended by the Executive Council at the present session.

The Executive Secretary will introduce this item by reminding the decision taken at the 43rd Session of the Executive Council to schedule “its 45th Session from Tuesday 19 June 2012 through Wednesday 27 June 2012, at UNESCO headquarters in Paris, France, with the possibility of an extension until Friday 29 June 2012” (Report IOC/EC-XLIII/3, Decision 9.4). In 2013 the Executive Council will act as the Steering Committee of the 27th session of the assembly; it will meet the day preceding the opening of the Assembly. The Executive Council will be invited to consider carefully the dates proposed here above, so that they do no conflict with the scheduled or anticipated dates of the WMO Executive Council, the UNCSD and the ICP meeting in June 2012.

The Executive Council will convene again in plenary later in the afternoon to adopt the Summary Report of the present session.

  IOC/EC-XLIV/3s: Executive Summary Report of the 44th Session of the IOC Executive Council, Paris, 21 June 2011

The Chairman will close the 44th session of the Executive Council at _______ on 21 June 2011.