EU Presidency Statement - Programme planning

Mr. President

I have the honour to speak on behalf of the European Union. The countries of Central and Eastern Europe associated with the European Union ( Estonia, Lithuania, Poland), and the countries also associated of Cyprus and Malta endorse this statement.

First allow me to thank M. Jean-Pierre HALBWACHS for having introduced the UN's proposed medium-term plan for 2002-2005. I would also like to thank Ambassador TOMMO MONTE who, in his capacity as Chairman of the Committee for Programme and Coordination (CPC) has been so kind as to present the Committee's report. As was the case in 1996, the Committee for Programme and Coordination studied this draft plan thoroughly at its 40th meeting. The European Union is very grateful to the Committee for its conclusions and recommendations that will be invaluable for the forthcoming discussions within the 5th Commission on this agenda item.

The European Union welcomes the revised version of the 25 sections which make up UN's proposed medium-term plan for 2002 to 2005. They have now been organised according to a clearly-defined structure: general guidelines followed for each subprogramme, by a definition of the objectives to be achieved, the strategy to be implemented in order to do so, results expected and, lastly performance indicators for measuring the progress achieved. The European Union notes with satisfaction the plan is pursuant to Article IV of the Regulations and Rules Governing Programme Planning, the Monitoring of Implementation and Methods of Evaluation, the revised version of which article the European Union endorsed. The European Union fully shares the view of the CPC that expected acomplishments and indicators of achievements increase transparency in programme design.

The European Union welcomes this unified presentation which constitutes a major improvement over previous medium-term plans which went into such detail that they made reading heavy-going and sometimes made it difficult to refocus on the Organisation's main activities. The European Union is grateful to the Secretariat for the efforts it has undertaken in order to achieve this result, and expresses the wish that, as indicated in the report A/C/55/14, this unified presentation allows an effective implementation of the programme planning, budgeting, monitoring and evaluation cycle. Admittedly, the quality may vary from one section to another. For some of them, that needed some improvement, the Commitee made recommendations. The European Union is ready to follow those recommandations, bearing in mind they are part of a negociated package.

Mr President,

The European Union shares the view of the CPC that the role of evaluation is becoming increasingly important. To evaluate programme delivery is essential in order to evaluate results achieved and the effectiveness of work done, as envisaged by the preamble to the PPBME. The European Union believes that there remains room for further improvement in these procedures and endorses the CPC's recommendations in this respect.

In this light, the European Union warmly welcomes the Programme Performance Report for 1998-1999, and thanks the Secretariat for the efforts made to produce it. The European Union shares the CPC 's appreciation of the inclusion of qualitative assessments, as requested by the General Assembly in resolution 53/207, and would appreciate that this evaluation procedure be further implemented in future years.

Mr President,

The European Union fully endorses the various paragraphs in the introductory section which clearly and succinctly outline the major challenges facing the UN during the period covered by the plan and sets out the general guidelines and strategy to be followed to meet these challenges.

The European Union notes that the priorities set in the proposed medium-term plan take over the same priorities as those set for the current plan. The new layout for the medium-term plan could be an opportunity for Member States to reflect on setting an order for the priorities of the Organisation

As the Medium term plan is the framework within which are drafted the corresponding biennal budgets, setting priorities that are too general and which, ultimately, cover practically all areas of the UN's activities, does not make it any easier to draft the corresponding budgets and scatters inadequate resources.

In this respect, The European Union strongly endorses the CPC recommendation on keeping the priorities set by the Secretary-General for the 2002-2005 period while noting that "this should not be taken to mean the maintenance of the status quo in programme implementation". We note that the biennal budget for 2002-2003 should reflect the current priorities, in particular the maintenance of international peace and security, promotion of human rights, effective coordination of humanitarian assistance, drug control and crime prevention, in its consideration of the budget.

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