"The General Assembly "Requests the Secretary-General to continue to provide interpretation services to informal meetings on an ad hoc basis, in accordance with established practice." 39. Following further discussion at the 229th meeting, to which the representatives of Brazil, Egypt, India and Morocco were invited, it was agreed to exclude from the Committee's draft resolution on the pattern of conferences any reference to the issuing of invitations by specialized agencies to subsidiary organs of the General Assembly. 40. It was further agreed, in the context of a discussion on the establishment by subsidiary organs of the General Assembly of standing bodies or ad hoc sessional or intersessional bodies, to retain the existing wording contained in paragraph 6 (d) of Assembly resolution 31/140, section I. 41. With regard to the proposal on the convening of special conferences, the Secretariat explained to the Committee that no official definition of such conferences existed. In practice, however, a special conference was informally considered to refer to a conference open to the participation of all Member States and involving more than one simultaneous meeting. Recent conferences on population, energy and the environment were cited as examples. 42. Such conferences represented a special burden for Member States and the Secretariat in view of the intensive preparations required and the increased workload created for planning and servicing staff. In 1968, when eight such conferences had been convened in a single year, the strain was very severe. However, it was felt that the five fields specified by the Joint Inspection Unit in its consideration of the matter (A/9795, paras. 418-455), no longer covered all the activities in which United Nations organs engaged. 43. Consequently, the Committee agreed to formulate the draft provision as follows: "In any given year, no more than five special conferences should be 
**Analysis**
The text discusses the organization of conferences, the workload of the Secretariat and Member States, and the need for a limitation on the number of special conferences. It mentions specific topics such as population, energy, and the environment. This suggests that the category should be related to international cooperation and diplomacy, rather than a specific economic or social sector.

**Category**
Natural resources and environment, International cooperation and diplomacy