EU Statement - Meeting between UN Resident Coordinators and Member States at the Ambassadorial level

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Excellencies, distinguished Resident Coordinators,

I have the honour to deliver this statement on behalf of the European Union and its Member States.

The Candidate Countries North Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, Albania, Ukraine, the Republic of Moldova, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Georgia align themselves with this statement.

As stressed in the Pact for the Future, we believe that the Resident Coordinator system is at the core of the UN Development System and its reform process, including as effective SDG accelerators at the country level.
We would like to make three points and ask one question.

First, as staunch supporters of multilateralism, we reiterate that UN presence in countries is key to peace and security, prosperity, sustainable development and the fight against poverty, with a governance based on human rights - objectives and values that we fully share.

The UN development reform process - with the Resident Coordinators at its heart - is aimed at ensuring that it is fit for purpose and up to these challenges.

Through the Resident Coordinator system, the UN is better positioned to be more coherent, effective, and responsive to local needs.

Second, we have been supporting the reform through political and financial positioning from the onset.

This year we are assessing the effectiveness, efficiency, coherence and impact of UN operational activities for development through the Quadrennial Comprehensive Policy Review (QCPR). We also welcome the new funding compact, incentivizing both core, and high-quality non-core funding for UN development activities.

Our overall priority in pursuing the reform is to ensure a UN delivering "as One". This must include a stronger Resident Coordinator system.

The EU and its Member States have collectively contributed close to EUR 300m to the Resident Coordinators system since 2019, including a new contribution from the EU of EUR 16 million for 2024-2025.

We look forward to reaching an agreement at the UN soon to provide adequate, predictable, and sustainable funding of the system, with a funding mix comprising the levy, cost-sharing and assessed contributions.

Finally, we are keen to enhance the dialogue between EU Heads of Delegations and Resident Coordinators in countries in order to boost cooperation for more coordinated and effective impact on the ground, including in contexts of crisis and humanitarian needs.

This includes greater synergies in our efforts to roll-out the Global Gateway, our sustainable investment strategy, and the UN programmes to achieve Agenda 2030, turbo-charged by the recent adoption of the Pact of the Future.

RCs also play a key role when they are double-hatted as Humanitarian Coordinators. We are supportive of reform initiatives such as the Flagship Initiative to empower them to lead in designing a people-centred response locally, to make the humanitarian, development, peace and security nexus a reality.

We similarly welcome UN and OHCHR's efforts to ensure that Human Rights Advisers are deployed to the field to support UN Country Teams at the request of Resident Coordinators.

My question therefore would be what further steps are needed to jointly improve the delivery of results by the development system on the ground and how can we support further, including through the QCPR resolution, the optimization of the RC system?