EU Presidency Statement - Operational activities of the UN - ECOSOC

Summary: July 7, 2003: Statement by H.E. Mr. Paolo Bruni, Ambassador, Permanent Representative of Italy, on behalf of the European Union. Item 3 of the Agenda: Operational activities of the United Nations for international development cooperation. Substantive Session of ECOSOC (GENEVA, 30 JUNE - 25 JULY 2003)

Mr. Chairman,

I have the honour to take the floor on behalf of the European Union. The Acceding Countries, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, the Slovak Republic and Slovenia and the Associated Countries, Bulgaria, Romania and Turkey, have aligned themselves to this statement.

The European Union would first of all like to thank the Secretary-General for the various reports submitted to us under this agenda item, particularly the one on funding UN system development co-operation activities and the progress report on the implementation of General Assembly Resolution 56/201.

The EU has reiterated that the relationship between the EU and the UN in the areas of development co-operation could be improved. In the EU's view, closer co-operation between the EU and the UN will contribute to the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals, particularly poverty eradication, through substantial improvement in the effectiveness and enhanced coherence of development co-operation assistance.

Mr. Chairman,

We agree with the Secretary-General when in his report he underlines the universal, democratic and neutral character of the United Nations and its role in building a general consensus around the development agenda. The EU recognises that the UN system provides a unique framework for addressing the global challenges facing the international community with strong legitimacy and specific operational strengths.

The EU also underlines the importance of more predictable and sustained funding for the UN system in the field of development. Therefore we support the Secretary-General's efforts in this direction; The multi-year funding frameworks adopted by a number of UN agency are a major step toward a programmatic approach, that we fully support, aimed at integrating objectives, results and resources. The multi-year funding framework can, in fact, improve predictability and help donors in their financial planning of external assistance to beneficiary countries.

The EU attaches special importance to the close connection between Common Country Assessment (CCA), UN Development Assistance Framework (UNDAF) and the Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSP) in terms of co-ordination, coherence and complementarity. We are convinced that all these efforts must strengthen the national capacity and reinforce the ownership of the development process in the beneficiary countries;

In fact one of the conclusions of the Rome Declaration on Harmonisation of February 25, 2003 states that the ultimate goal for supporting country analytic work is to strengthen governments' ability to assume a greater leadership role and take ownership of development results. We encourage the process of harmonisation - also beyond UN partners - in the interest of effectiveness and efficiency of international contributions to national poverty reduction endeavours.

In this context, the EU welcomes the progress made by the members of UNDG in the process of harmonisation and simplification and calls for an acceleration of the efforts in the field of joint implementation and recovery policies for non-core resources within the context of the agenda for the years 2004-2007. In this regard the EU is in favour of the further strengthening of the role and the capacity of the Resident Co-ordinator to ensure the effective use of UNDAFs and the promotion and dissemination of good practices. The EU is convinced that a more systematic, widespread use of the evaluation should be adopted not only inside the UN system but to a greater extent to the whole of the donor community, the recipient country and the stakeholders. On a more general level, while endorsing the recommendations of the report of the Secretary General, the EU would give top priority to evaluations that encompass all the UN development activities in a specific country more than to single project/programmes evaluation related to a single agency. This should promote the emergence of a culture of evaluation and lesson learning at the country level;

The EU is also in favour of a single locus in the UN for review of individual UNDAFs and regards the joint boards of the Funds and Programmes as the most appropriate place for this among current governance structures. The EU supports the concept of the UNDAF serving as a UN "country programme". It believes that this should be reinforced by evaluating all UN activities in a country against the outcomes included in the Results Matrices which form a part of the new UNDAFs.

We acknowledge that core funds registered by the United Nations have stagnated and that of the different patterns of United Nations development funding, voluntary contributions are now the principal mode. The clear commitment undertaken by the developed countries in Monterrey to lend support to the achievement of the internationally agreed development goals and objectives, including those contained in the Millennium Declaration, is giving positive results since trend of reduction of ODA has been stopped and reversed. We also share the concern that a renewed dialogue with the donor community should be established in order to expand the donor base and stabilise the core funding. In particular, it is very important that in the dialogue that the UN want to establish with the international community a priority place is given to the linking between funding and results and we invite the Secretary General to give a stronger focus to this issue in his future reports, in particular during the preparation of the Triennial Comprehensive Policy Review (TPCR).

In this regard the EU would suggest the Secretary-General to focus the analysis for the triennial comprehensive policy review (TCPR) in 2004 on the assessment of issues such as the effectiveness of the reforms of the UN operational activities in improving development results and outcomes, and increasing the coherence, efficiency and quality of programming at country level. In this context, particular attention should be paid to:

the value of CCA/UNDAF and the associated result matrix in improving operational activities;
the value of MDGs in supporting the alignment of the UN system operational activities with national development efforts;
the harmonisation and simplification processes, identifying further areas for an agenda for 2004-2007, such as joint programming and resource transfer modalities;
capacity building for pursuing the goals, targets and commitments set in the UN Millennium Declaration and by the major UN conferences;
the adequacy of the UN development funding in light of the changed development dynamics and the challenges that internationally agreed goals present to the developing countries and the international community;
results, outcomes and lessons learned at the country level from evaluations activities;
adequacy of human resources available at the country level within the UN system to support national efforts.

Concerning the EU's specific actions in the field of the development financing, I am proud to recall that in Barcelona the EU made a formal commitment -reconfirmed in Monterrey -- to collectively raise the Official Development Assistance level to 0.39% of the Gross National Income by 2006 as a first significant step toward the UN goal of 0.7% ODA/GNI. This will be achieved thanks to substantial efforts by current EU Member States either to stay above 0.7% ODA/GNI or to strive to achieve at least 0.33% ODA/GNI, depending on each country's starting point. The Monterrey Consensus as well as the Millennium Declaration remain for the EU the key axis for addressing the funding issue.

As you know the EU, which will count 10 new Member States next year, is already the largest single financial contributor to the UN system. The EU's present Member States pay approximately 37% of the UN's regular budget, 40 % of UN peacekeeping operations and 50% of all UN Member States' contributions to UN funds and programs.

In this context renewed efforts have been already undertaken by EU and I would like to highlight that European Commission have close working relations with many different parts of the UN system and that in April 2003 the UN and the EC signed a revised framework agreement on the financing and co-financing of UN projects;

Mr. Chairman,

In this regard, I would like to stress once again the paramount importance the EU attaches to the results and outcomes of the UN development activities and to the value of the MDGs in supporting the alignment of operational activities for development of the United Nations system with national efforts to reduce poverty.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Ref: PRES03-205EN
EU source: EU Presidency
UN forum: ECOSOC (Economic and Social Council), (including functional Commissions)
Date: 7/7/2003

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