Statement by Muhammad Abdul Muhith, Permanent Representative of Bangladesh to the United Nations on the Agenda Item 113: “Report of the Secretary-General on the work of the Organization (A/77/1)”, General Assembly Hall, 06 February 2023

Mr. President,

At the  outset, on behalf of the Peoples of Bangladesh, let me express our deep condolences at the tragic loss of lives and property caused by the devastating earthquake across Türkiye and Syrian Arab Republic.  We stand in solidarity with the people of Türkiye and Syria Arab Republic at this difficult time.

I thank the Secretary-General for his briefing this morning.

My delegation align itself with the statement made by Cuba, on behalf of G-77 and China. Allow me to speak on my national capacity:

 

Mr. President,

Allow me to highlight a few points that my delegation believes are critical for addressing the present challenges and preparing for future crises.

First, Poverty, inequality, climate change, migration and refugee crisis, and natural and manmade disasters continue to threaten our efforts to attain sustainable development. We need a more robust global partnership, with the UN at the center, to address these challenges.

Second, The ongoing challenges have worsened the structural vulnerabilities of the LDCs, LLDCs and SIDs, eroding their prospects of recovery from the pandemic, and achieving the SDGs. In this regard, we support the Secretary General’s call to reform the international financial architecture to ensure that adequate consetional finance reach the most vulnerable economies. We encourage the UN for enhanced collaboration with the World Bank Group, IMF and relevant economic and financial agencies to obtain sustained financial support for developing countries.

Third, We appreciate the Secretary General’s initiatives for enhancing SDG-aligned investments and stimulus for SDG implementation. In this regard, we welcome the convening of the Sustainable Development Investment Fair to scale up long-term finance and investment in developing countries and better align the finance and investment ecosystem with the Sustainable Development Goals. Developed countries must fulfill their ODA and climate funds commitments to support the implementation of the SDGs in developing countries. We look forward to the SDG Summit later this year to achieve a concrete outcome in this regard.

Fourth, We thank the Secretary-General and the UN entities for maintaining a focus on addressing the climate crisis and biodiversity loss. There is a pressing need to ensure adequate financing for adaptation to support developing countries in their adaptive capacity to mitigate the impacts of climate change.

Fifth,We need to work together with a renewed commitment to implement the key recommendations of Our Common Agenda which sets out long-term strategies to prevent crises, build resilience, manage risks and build a sustainable future for all keeping the robut multilateralism at the heart of the process.

My delegation will support every effort to advance the key deliverables of this agenda. We welcome the progress on some OCA recommendations, including the holding of a transformative education summit, establishment of the youth office, organizing the summit of the future.

We stress the importance of ensuring synergies in the works of the Secretariat, the General Assembly, the ECOSOC and its subsidiary bodies to pursue the Secretary-General’s priorities.

Sixth, We welcome the progress on the development of a Global Digital Compact as envisaged in Our Common Agenda, to improve digital cooperation, bridge digital divides and accelerate the positive contribution of digital technologies in developing countries, including towards achieving the 2030 Agenda.

My delegation will remain fully engaged in all future discussions to advance the Compact.

Seventh, Globally the humanitarian situations are at all time high with 1.2 percent of world’s population having been displaced. A major portion of them accounts for people fleeing war and conflicts. While we deeply appreciate the leadership of the Secretary General and the UN system in general in providing humanitarian assistance to those people in need, we would like to stress the need to place increased attention towards political solutions to such conflicts and their root causes.

For last five years Bangladesh has been hosting over a million Rohingya minorities who fled Myanmar in the face of mass atrocities and systematic persecution.  The current situation in Myanmar is having a serious impact on their safe, voluntary and dignified return. The efforts of the UN in creating conducive environment in Rakhine has so far been inadequate and ineffective.

We are encouraged by the adoption of the first ever security council resolution on Myanmar in December last year. We call upon the Special Envoy of the Secretary General to deepen her engagements with Myanmar and other regional and key stakeholders in finding an early and lasting solution to the Rohingya crisis.

 

Eighth, When the whole world has been struggling with the devastating impacts of the pandemic, the global economic downturn and the effect of ongoing war and conflicts, we welcome the initiatives of the formulation of New Agenda for Peace which focuses on investment in prevention and peacebuilding, support to the regional prevention, and reshaping all forms of violence. In this regard, we underscore the potential roles of the Peacekeeping operations and Peacebuilding Commission for an effective New Agenda for Peace.

As the leading troop and police contributing country and also an active member of the Peacebuilding Commission, Bangladesh is always committed and ready to take forward the UN’s peace and security agenda to build and sustain peace.

I wish to conclude by reassuring the SG that he can count on Bangladesh’s continued support as he takes forward our shared priorities and commitments.

I thank you, Mr. President.