At its plenary meeting on 25 July 1996, 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, decided 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.