Mr. Chair,
- I deliver the statement on behalf of the 47 LDCs. We align ourselves to the statement made by Ecuador on behalf of G77 and China. We thank Deputy Secretary General for her presentation.
- We also thank Secretary General for his comprehensive reports on the agenda items being discussed today.
- UN Development System plays an important role in the development efforts of the LDCs. The QCPR Resolution adopted last year requested the UN Development System to address the special challenges facing the LDCs and provide support to them for the implementation of the IPOA and the SDGs. When a number of LDCs are on the path of graduation from the LDC category, the QCPR resolution asked for comprehensive and targeted support for those graduating and the graduated LDCs for a specific period after graduation. It also recognizes the need for Technology Bank for LDCs to be supported by the UNDS. However, the UNDS at its current capacity is not able to deliver the mandated tasks. It must be reformed to better support the Member States, particularly the LDCs and other vulnerable countries according to their needs and priorities. We want full implementation of the QCPR resolution and reiterate that any repositioning of the UNDS must take guidance from that.
- UNDS must be repositioned so that it could support the LDCs for specific programmes, projects, follow-up and monitoring of the implementation of the 2030 Agenda, Istanbul Programme of Actions and other development agenda in a coordinated and coherent manner. UN entities dedicated for the LDCs must be strengthened. There must be a strong presence of the UNDS in all vulnerable countries specially in the LDCs.
- UN must be well resourced. In December 2017 Report of the SG, we would like to see more detail on how to finance the SDGs. The UNDS must support us in combating climate change, in making technology and innovation available to us, and most importantly in facilitating partnership for development.
- National ownership principle must be maintained and country priority must be respected while reforming the UNDS. Transparency and accountability of the UNDS to the Member States including to the host country is vitally important to ensure its effectiveness.
- We are concerned at the revelation of SG’s report that funding and staff of the UNDS remain highly concentrated in a limited number of SDGs with approximately 50% of funding allocated to SDGs 2, 3 and 16. The SDGs are indivisible and UNDS should take a holistic and more balanced approach to their implementation.
- Conflict and humanitarian situation continue to plague the world. We acknowledge that sustainable development and peace are mutually reinforcing. However, the focus of UNDS should be development and resources should not be diverted from the development projects.
- UNDS must be reformed and this reform must be aligned with other ongoing reform efforts in the UN which have direct bearing on programmes related to development.
Mr. Chair,
- South -South Cooperation has the potential to be a great means for accelerating development in the South as a complement to the North-South Cooperation. It has been prominently mentioned in the IPOA as well as in the Addis Agenda, highlighting its complementarity to cooperation by traditional providers for the LDCs. We are pleased with the activities and initiatives undertaken by the Office for South South Cooperation aligned with the IPOA.
- The role of emerging economies as trading partners, investors and providers of development cooperation of LDCs has substantially increased over the past decades. The total development cooperation from emerging providers is estimated to be around US$32 billion in 2014, representing 17 per cent of the global total. South-South cooperation follows a broader approach than cooperation from traditional donors. The cooperation between the LDCs and the South has gone beyond the provision of aid and includes more varied areas of cooperation particularly in trade and investment. A large number of South-South cooperation initiatives focus on infrastructure gaps, capacity building, policy sharing and mutual learning and knowledge sharing in the LDCs. We appreciate the south-south cooperation providers for LDCs particularly China, India, Brazil, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, and Turkey. It is encouraging that some of these countries explicitly focus on LDCs in their strategies.
- As has been enshrined in the IPOA, South South cooperation needs to be enhanced, including through sharing of experiences and best practices for accelerating the pace of development in the LDCs. It should be further leveraged as a critical source for adequate, predictable and affordable finance and technology transfer for the LDCs.
- For South-South cooperation to be truly impactful, assisting LDCs in moving up in global value chains and facilitating the transformation of their economies should be a priority. Free trade and free mobility is the vehicle of growth and prosperity. We call upon the emerging economies to grant duty-free-quota-free market access to LDC products and easy mobility of migrant workers from LDCs and vulnerable countries in the spirit of South-South Cooperation. We look forward to the High Level Conference on South-South Cooperation in March 2019 in Buenos Aires.
I thank you all.