EU Statement – UN General Assembly 2nd Committee: Operational Activities for development

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Mr Chair, Excellencies, distinguished delegates,

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.

This year we are assessing the effectiveness, efficiency, coherence and impact of UN operational activities for development through the Quadrennial Comprehensive Policy Review (QCPR).

Mr Chair,

This will be particularly important, as it will be the first review after the COVID 19 pandemic and its impact on the development system, and the last full review before 2030, when we have to reach our goal of implementing the SDGs. The review also comes right after the Summit of the Future and the successful adoption of its Pact, with a clear goal of re-invigorating multilateralism, and working towards turbo-charging the SDGs.

The European Union and its Member States are ready to participate constructively in these negotiations and in this sense we would like to present today our key messages in 3 blocks: the development system, its scope and its monitoring.

First,our overall priority is to ensure a more efficient and effective UN development system that is fit for purpose to address interconnected crises, achieve the 2030 Agenda and tackle deepening inequalities.

A system able to deliver results on the ground effectively, collaboratively, and coherently.

We welcome that the UN Development System Reform Implementation is going in the right direction, but we must also acknowledge that much remains to be done for the benefits of the reform to truly materialise.

The reform, and particularly the Resident Coordinators' new role, seem to have strengthened the overall UN representation, profile and visibility in the programme countries. However, the UN delivering "as One" remains work in progress.

We remain committed to effective coordination of the UN development system and want to reiterate our strong support to the Resident Coordinator system.

For that purpose, we want to add language on the new funding compact, incentivizing both core, and high-quality non-core funding.

The EU notably looks forward to reaching an agreement to provide adequate, predictable, and sustainable funding of the Resident Coordinator system, with a funding mix comprising the levy, cost-sharing and assessed contributions.

Second, in the coming negotiations on QCPR, we want to further strengthen existing normative language. This includes language on human rights, leaving no one behind, gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls, youth participation, eliminating discrimination based on any ground, including of sex, race, ethnic or social origin, religion or belief, political or any other opinion, disability, age, sexual orientation and gender identity. We also want to seelanguage on the humanitarian-development-peace actors, and the women and the youth-peace-security agendas.

As stated in the preamble of the Pact for the Future the three pillars of the United Nations - sustainable development, peace and security, and human rights - are equally important, interlinked and mutually reinforcing. We cannot have one without the others.

We believe that UN country teams and resident coordinators have an important role to play in post-conflict and fragile contexts and would like to see their stronger engagement in prevention, peacebuilding and sustaining peace including in transitioning from peacekeeping to post-conflict reconstruction.

Similarly, we need to keep ambition on environmental sustainability, climate action, biodiversity, disaster risk reduction, energy and the digital transition as well human development, including health and inclusive and equitable quality educationto address skill gaps.

We want the UN development system and Multilateral Development Banks to improve their collaboration in order to deliver as a coherent system, fostering partnership and strategic engagement and further align their strategic plans to achieve the SDGs.

Finally, we need to strengthen language on oversight and accountability functions of the Executive Boards and want an effective, useful and independent system-wide evaluation system. A system that encourages joint working, including harmonized evaluation methodologies and practices, data sharing and collective learning among UNDS entities.

We welcome the establishment of the System-Wide Evaluation Office (SWEO) and look forward to leveraging its work to strengthen our governance of the UN development system.

We also emphasize the need to streamline the different reporting requirements across the UN development system.

Last but not least, we would like to see more coherence between the QCPR in the General Assembly and the ECOSOC operational activities segment, which is tasked with implementing the QCPR.

Mr, Chair, Excellencies, Distinguished Delegates,

We trust that the negotiations will result in an ambitious and action oriented resolution and you can count on the continuous support of the European Union.

We expect to receive the zero draft as soon as possible, before this Friday's meeting.

I thank you.