STATEMENT BY AMBASSADOR STAFFORD NEIL, PERMANENT REPRESENTATIVE OF JAMAICA TO THE UNITED NATIONS AND CHAIRMAN OF THE GROUP OF 77, DURING THE OPEN-ENDED INFORMAL CONSULTATIONS OF THE PLENARY ON THE ORGANIZATION OF THE HIGH-LEVEL PLENARY MEETING OF THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF SEPTEMBER 2005 (New York, 1 April 2005)

Mr. President,

The Group of 77 and China wishes to congratulate and to thank you and your able Facilitators for the initiatives you have been taking in preparing for the High Level Plenary meeting in September. You have a heavy burden to bear in guiding the process and I want to assure you once again that our Group will continue to give you our full support and cooperation. There are important issues at stake and we want to ensure that the outcome of our efforts result in the strengthening of multilateralism and the efficient working of the international system. We therefore need to proceed with care in designing the modalities that will lead to that result.

We thank you for the draft resolution which you have circulated on the Preparation for and Organization of the High Level Plenary Meeting of the General Assembly. It merits our careful and detailed consideration. For the time being we have some general comments and some issues requiring further clarification.

First, with regard to proposals in the draft resolution the G77 and China believes it is important that nothing in the resolution on the modalities should in any way prejudge the substantive outcome of the process. We therefore feel that the reference in paragraph 2 to the Report of the Secretary-General should be in neutral language instead of wording suggesting endorsement.

Second, with reference to the preparatory process we wish to emphasize the importance of principles of transparency, openness and inclusiveness. Participation and engagement in the process of determining substantive outcomes by all States large and small on the basis of sovereign equality should be ensured. We look forward to a clearer definition of how the process will be managed, the role of the Facilitators and the engagement of Member States in any drafting process.

We also want to emphasize that Member States will be drawing on inputs other than the Secretary-General’s Report in the process of decision-making. The views and proposals of Member States themselves will form an important part of the material for decision-making. In the circumstances it would be useful in view of the importance of the substantive consultations that we have the full texts of Member States contributions. We wonder whether there could be arrangements made to have verbatim records of all contributions.

With respect to the organization of the Meeting we note the proposal in para 3 for joint presidency which has reasonable justification but we may need clarification on how this can be arranged within the rules of procedure.

In the arrangement for the speakers list, we note that apart from the presiding officers and the head of the delegation of the host country who are to speak at the opening session, all other speaking slots will be determined by drawing of slots. We wonder whether it might not be appropriate for some special arrangement to be made for the heads of major political groupings making joint statements.

We also note that three slots are provided for non-governmental organizations at the High Level Plenary even though a separate event is being provided to receive their inputs. We would also need some clarification on why no provision is made for statements by any representative of development agencies. We feel that it would be particularly appropriate for them to make a contribution in the Round Table.

Finally, Mr. President, we have some concern with one of your amendments read out to us this morning. It relates to the deletion of the words “that are proposing key initiatives on the Financing for Development process” in paragraph 4 of Annex. We attach special importance to retaining this language since it would facilitate giving priority to delegations presenting specific initiatives. We therefore would request the retention of the language as proposed in the original text.

Thank you Mr. President.