Mr. President,

First of all let me express, on behalf of the Group of 77 and China, our gratitude to you Mr. President for your leadership and the entire Bureau for their untiring efforts to the successful conclusion of ECOSOC substantive session. We take this opportunity to extend our admiration to all the Facilitators of draft resolutions for facilitating our task and helping us in reaching agreements. We would also express our appreciation for the Secretariat for providing us with all necessary support.

2.       This has been a historic session in many aspects, particularly when we have laid the foundation of a strengthened ECOSOC. We are satisfied at the convening of first Annual Ministerial Review and the successful launch of the Development Cooperation Forum. The adoption of the Ministerial Declaration by consensus augurs well for the strengthened ECOSOC.

3.       This year AMR, however, proved to be one sided event with only developing countries making their voluntary national presentations. There should be a substantive and equal participation of developed partners in the future sessions of AMR. It would help to know as to how far their policies are in conformity with guidelines of aid effectiveness as well as status of implementation of the commitments undertaken under the IADGs including MDGs. In this regard, we welcome the intention of the Netherlands to make presentation in the next AMR.

4.       The Council should seek to make the AMR and the DCF action and result oriented in future. We feel that the AMR would be more fruitful if its themes could emerge from   the information and data provided by the functional and regional commissions with a view to monitor the implementation of development goals and commitments.

5.       In order to make the work of ECOSOC more relevant to the current challenges, it is imperative that our decisions and response should be based on factual information and trends. We, in the Group of 77 and China, will give this matter further consideration and hope to make specific suggestions in this regard.        

6.       We reiterate our call for establishing benchmarks for assessing the implementation of MDG 8 of Global Partnership for Development, as has been done in the case of other seven MDGs.

7.       We also urge to establish monitoring mechanisms in each area to ensure that analysis and recommendations to be adopted are based on realities.

8.       In conclusion, we would again like to express our gratitude to you Mr. President, the members of the Bureau, and the Secretariat for their work.

9.       On behalf of the Group of 77 and China, we would like to assure you, our colleagues and partners, of our earnest participation in the coming sessions of ECOSOC, as always, in a constructive and positive spirit.

I thank you.