Mr. Chairman:
Excellencies:
Distinguished delegates:
Ladies and gentlemen:

On behalf of the Group of 77 and China, let me offer our profound appreciation for your able and energetic stewardship of the Fifteenth Session of the Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD-15).

Let me also thank you for presenting the Chairman’s draft negotiating document.

This Session of CSD is taking place at an important moment when concerns about the issues of Sustainable Development have come to the forefront of global attention. To end hunger and poverty; to enhance prosperity; to ensure continued and balanced economic and social development, the nations and peoples of the world must successfully address the challenges we face in each of the areas on the Agenda for this session: Energy for Sustainable Development; Industrial Development; Air Pollution/Atmosphere; and Climate Change. Both the challenges in these areas, and the responses to them, are closely interlinked with each other and with the realization of sustainable development.

Mr. Chairman,

The Commission on Sustainable Development is uniquely placed to address these issues through its mandated role of providing policy guidance and coordination, as well as reviewing and monitoring the progress in the implementation of Agenda 21, the Johannesburg Plan of Implementation, the Barbados Programme of Action and Mauritius Strategy of Implementation as well as the Bali Strategic Plan for Technology Support and Capacity Building.

This Commission should serve as an effective forum for ensuring full and effective implementation of commitments and promote the integration of the three pillars of sustainable development, i.e. economic development, social development, and the environmental protection.
The 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development recognized that the three overarching objectives of, and essential requirements for sustainable development are: protecting the natural resources, eradicating poverty, changing unsustainable production and consumption patterns. In this context, while reaffirming the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities in protecting the environment and promoting sustainable development, we call for policies and actions that will enable developing countries to bridge the ever widening gap between the rich and the poor.
The G-77 and China remain convinced that concerted efforts are needed to integrate the three pillars of sustainable development, as agreed in Agenda 21, the Millennium Summit, the World Summit on Sustainable Development and the 2005 World Summit, in a coordinated, and comprehensive manner with regard to the policy options addressing the four themes of CSD-15.
Our demonstrable political will has proven insufficient to overcome the challenges we face. These challenges transcend the issues of commitment and will, but relate more closely to our lack of capacity, inadequate resources including financial, human and technical; structural handicaps, the impact of natural disasters, crippling impact of external debt; unfair trade, agricultural, and other economic policies, which impede our development efforts. 
Mr. Chairman,
The world showed tremendous stewardship in outlining a comprehensive global development agenda through the agreements reached and commitments made at major UN Summits and Conferences. Unfortunately, this has not translated into action on the ground. Implementation remains the Achilles Heel of the global development agenda and the biggest challenge for sustainable development. Implementation of the development agenda remains the biggest challenge for sustainable development.
We call for full and faithful implementation of agreed commitments be based on the Rio principles particularly the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities.
Mr. Chairman,

The G-77 and China has consistently called for simultaneous action to address the challenges related to all these three pillars of sustainable development in a coordinated, integrated and comprehensive manner. At the national and international levels, the economic, social and environmental goals should be promoted in complementary and consistent ways. Therefore, progress in the environmental pillar of sustainable development should be matched by simultaneous progress on the economic and social pillars as well.

In the endeavour to promote solutions to the challenges of sustainable development, we must ensure that the priority problems of poverty, hunger and under development remain the center of our attention. These developmental challenges intensify the impact of and vulnerabilities to environmental risks for the developing countries mainly due to lack of their adaptative capacities. As a result, the poorest are the hardest hit and bear the highest and exorbitant costs. 

Mr. Chairman,

We call for the provision of new and additional financial resources for development, equitable international trade and financial systems; the liberalization of restraints on the transfer of technology to developing countries as well as knowledge-generation, and concerted efforts for capacity building of the developing countries.

In this context, we note with regret the decline in ODA. It fell 5.1 percent in 2006 compared to 2005. Moreover, the ODA calculations include debt relief grants and housing of refugees. According to some reports only   0.3 percent of EU GNI was spent on “genuine aid” during recent years.  The target of 0.7 % of GNI as ODA to developing countries and that of 0.15 to 0.20 % of GNI of developed countries to Least Developed Countries remains far from realization.

Similarly, significant progress has neither been achieved with regard to transfer of technology in the presence of IPRs nor in realizing the objective of capacity building of developing countries.

We believe that there is insufficient focus on the development dimension of international trade in the Doha Round and other trade negotiations. Outside the trade field, the restraints on access to technology, specially advanced technologies, which could address critical development problems, are now major manifestation of inequality between the developed and the developing countries. There is now clear evidence of the constraints placed on development by certain aspects of the TRIPS regime. 

We support a comprehensive reform of the international financial architecture, including enhancement in the voting powers of developing countries, in a time bound manner.

We must find ways to fund R&D on the priority problems of the developing countries. A list of such priority areas for R&D should be drawn up by the relevant international organizations, in cooperation with the developing countries and arrangements made to direct financing, including by institutions and corporations in the developed countries, to conduct R&D on these priority problems.

As CSD-15 aims at finding ways and actions to address the challenges with regard to the four issues under the thematic clusters, we cannot forget that approximately 1.6 billion people in developing countries still have no access to energy and 2.4 billion people have high exposure to indoor air-pollution because they still rely on biomass for their energy needs.

Mr. Chairman,

We emphasize that adequate policies must take into consideration the special needs of Africa, LDCs, LLDCs and SIDS. It is therefore imperative that appropriate measures should be taken to accelerate the implementation of commitments made to Africa, and the commitments contained in the Brussels programme of Action for the LDCs, the Almaty Programme of Action and the Barbados Programme of Action.

We would also like to emphasize the needs of countries emerging from conflict in the areas of capacity building, technical cooperation and infrastructure development.
 
We recognize the extensive difficulties faced by peoples under foreign occupation with respect to sovereignty over, access to, and management of natural resources, including energy resources, as well as with respect to sustainable development and emphasize the need to address their special situation and needs.

The Group of 77 and China believes that the urgent implementation of the Bali Strategic Plan for Capacity Building and Technology Transfer is one of the essential elements to build capacities, enhance coordination and strengthen scientific knowledge and assessment and cooperation, and foster the transfer of knowledge to developing countries.

The innovation of partnerships agreed to in the Johannesburg Plan of Implementation, requires a more coherent approach on the corporate, environmental and social responsibility and accountability, which would allow developing countries to benefit from lessons learnt and best practices in different parts of the world.

Mr. Chairman,

An effective response to these challenges requires clear analysis, policy clarity and the political will to implement agreed policies.

            On the process of work during CSD-15, we would like to request the Chairman to present us a compilation text of various proposals made during our discussions, with clear attributions of proponents. It would help our delegations to engage in the negotiations with a better understanding of each others viewpoints.

It is our expectation that deliberations in CSD-15 will address the global sustainable development challenges in an integrated and coordinated manner and so that we can agree to a set of action-based and development oriented policy options with an in-built mechanism allowing for their follow up and implementation and find sustainable solutions to the sustainable development challenges.

I thank you.