Honourable President of the Fifth United Nations Conference on LDCs
Honourable President of Malawi
Mr. Secretary-General
Excellencies
Distinguished Delegates
Ladies and Gentlemen,
I have the honour to speak today, on behalf of Ambassador Robert Rae of Canada, and myself, in our capacity as the Co-Chairs of the Preparatory Committee of the 5th United Nations Conference on the LDCs.
At the outset, we congratulate you, Mr. President, on your election as the President of the LDC5. We thank you for organizing part-one of the Conference today and for your steadfast support and commitment to make the LDC5 a success.
Allow me to put on record our deep appreciation to Ambassador Aliya Al-Thani. We are grateful to her and her team here for their extraordinary support and engagement in the entire process.
We thank and commend the Hon’ble President of Malawi and his able team in New York for leading the Group of LDCs during this extraordinary time. The delegation of Malawi has done an outstanding job in the entire process.
Mr. President,
We have just adopted the Doha Programme of Action for the LDCs (DPOA) for the decade 2022-2031. This comes at a time when we have just entered the third year of the COVID-19 pandemic – [the past] two years have been characterized by unprecedented crisis and uneven and inequitable responses, which pushed the LDCs further behind.
As co-chairs of the PrepCom, it is a special moment to witness the adoption of the DPOA, an ambitious and comprehensive outcome document, which lays out a well-defined action agenda for LDCs and their development partners. We are grateful for the support and cooperation from everyone which made this possible.
We are very pleased that the development partners came forward with strong commitment. They supported a number of the key deliverables in the text. These include: an Online University; an International Investment Support Center; Food Stockholding; and a Sustainable Graduation Support Facility.
The LDCs also came forward to do their part in committing to promote good governance, the rule of law, building institutions and ensuring the empowerment of women and girls.
If these targets can be met by both sides that would certainly bring about transformative changes in the lives and livelihoods of the people in the LDCs.
The preparatory process was long and strenuous, yet extremely meaningful and rewarding. We deeply appreciate the remarkable commitment and hard work of our experts and our own teams, which enabled to complete the process successfully.
The real work will start with the implementation of the DPOA. It contains an excellent architecture of comprehensive follow-up and monitoring mechanism. We need to leverage on this to advance its transformative agenda.
We urge the development partners, the entire UN system, countries of the south, the private sector, CSOs to remain constructively engaged and fully deliver on their respective commitments for the implementation of the DPOA.
The LDCs need your financial and technical support in the spirit of true partnership to achieve structural transformations, which will allow them to continue on the path to graduation and to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals. We call on the UN agencies, Funds and Programmes to prioritize and integrate the DPOA in their Strategic Plans and country programmes to ensure that the UN’s impact in the LDCs is commensurate with their needs.
And in this transformative journey, the OHRLLS will have to play a pivotal role. We commend the entire team of OHRLLS for their invaluable support to us. And now we expect them to closely monitor progress, especially for achieving the deliverables.
They will need enhanced resources to advance the ambitious targets and commitments of the DPOA. We would earnestly request all to support the Office in strengthening its capacity for fulfilling its mandate.
Mr. President,
The 5th UN Conference on the LDCs offers us a unique opportunity to help the LDCs overcome their challenges. Our focus through this Programme of Action has been on concrete commitments and deliverables, and now is the time to demonstrate international solidarity and partnership to achieve those, and to make a real difference.
We look forward to seeing our Heads of States and Governments in part-two of the Conference in March 2023 in Doha. This will allow us to take stock of the implementation of the Doha Programme of Action in the first year and generate further momentum towards renewed and reinvigorated global partnerships for its implementation.
I thank you.