EU Presidency Statement - Regional cooperation - ECOSOC

Mr. President,

I have the honor to speak on behalf of the European Union. The Candidate Countries Bulgaria, Romania, Turkey and Croatia[1], the Countries of the Stabilisation and Association Process and potential candidates Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Serbia and Montenegro, and the EFTA country Norway, member of the European Economic Area, align themselves with this statement.

For the European Union, the Millennium Declaration constitutes the overarching policy framework for the economic and social work of the UN and the Millennium Development Goals provide us with concrete and measurable targets to be achieved by 2015. This guides our actions both here at ECOSOC, in the General Assembly, the functional commissions and the funds and programmes.

The EU considers that the regional commissions can usefully contribute, within their mandates, to the review of progress made in the implementation and follow-up to the outcomes of the major UN conferences and summits. They could also act as helpful regional focal points for monitoring progress towards the achievement of the MDGs as well as other internationally agreed development goals and targets. This function of the regional commissions should be performed in full cooperation and coordination with the global processes set up for monitoring the MDGs in a way that avoids any duplication, facilitates the crucial task of monitoring and does not create unnecessary steps in the process. The role of the regional commissions in monitoring the MDGs also needs to be coordinated with national processes and other regional initiatives.

In this vein, the EU welcomes further efforts for strengthened coordination between the regional commissions and the United Nations organisations, including the specialised agencies, funds and programmes. In this context, the EU is ready to consider proposals aimed at linking more effectively the activities of the regional commissions with the overall activities of the UN in the economic and social sector. In particular, the EU is willing to consider discussing the work of the regional commissions under the coordination segment.

The EU would also like to seize this opportunity to reiterate its commitment to support the work of the UN-ECE and to participate actively in its reform.

The focus of this year's discussion is on information and communication technologies and on the digital divide in the context of the preparation of the second phase of the World Summit on Information Society. As computers and the Internet have continued to transform the society and the economy, the role of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in fostering development has become more generally recognised. For many developing countries of course, improvements in overall telecommunication technology as well as effective use of radios are key.ICTs can contribute to the achievement of all of the MDGs in all sectors of life: health, education, government, culture, etc. The Information Society is pervasive in all governmental economic, and social sectors.

ICTs are powerful tools for promoting good governance and empowerment, for enhancing transparency and accountability in the political system and for giving a voice to the poor. They also strengthen the delivery of basic public services and facilitate capacity building.

The European Union is aware of the digital divide and as such welcomes the report of the Secretary General which advocates more mainstreaming of ICTs in development efforts. We are pleased to see that the support the European Commission and a number of EU Member States have given to the UN-ECA for the development of the National Information and Communication Infrastructure (NICI) plans has lead to a further awareness creation of the Information Society in Africa.

On a national scale, many countries are developing national e-strategies and in parallel, some are integrating ICT into their Poverty Reduction Strategies (PRSP). This implies that ICTs are recognised as a long term investment that can positively impact development once the effective policies and resources are in place. For these investments to bear fruit however, it will be essential to measure and report on short and middle term impacts thus ensuring that these initiatives are achieving their expected outcomes. Up to date and correct information is the key to better decision making, and this is where the UN has a major role to play as proposed in the work on statistics, data collection and benchmarking. Moreover, the UN and its regional organisations should continue to stimulate the debate on e-strategies.

The European Union in its development policy is aware of the opportunities offered by the Information and Communication technologies and is mainstreaming ICTs in the different development programmes and projects. In this context, we welcome the Declaration of Principles and the Plan of Action of the first phase of the World Summit on the Information Society which forms the basis for an approach to the Information Society common to all the Member States of the United Nations. The EU is ready to contribute to the work of the two bodies set up in Geneva, namely the UN Task Force on Financing Mechanisms to Bridge the Digital Divide and the Working Group on Internet Governance to help exploring all options and to clearly put all the problems and issues on the table.

Thank you.


[1] Croatia continues to be part of the Stabilisation and Association Process

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