Mr. President,

I have the honour to make these remarks on behalf of the Group of 77 and China.

The Group of 77 and China would like to thank the UNDP for presenting the country programme documents including Human Development Initiative programme in Myanmar.

Mr. President,

            The Group of 77 and China is delivering this statement to covey our deep concern over the rising tendency amongst some countries to question and criticize the development oriented country programmes of developing countries based on political considerations.

2.         We believe that country programme documents reflect an agreement reached between the respective UN agency, fund or programme and the national governments. These are prepared according to the guidelines of UN operational activities.

Mr. President,

3.         Executive Boards are forums, where Members are expected to guide the agencies in their work about the technical aspects of the country programmes. Any politically motivated criticism of the domestic policies of the programme countries, by Board Members leads to unnecessary   politicization of the development work of UN and its agencies as well its Executive Boards. We emphasize that all the issues should be discussed at the appropriate forums.

4.         The overarching principle of UN operational activities is national ownership and leadership of the process, its products and results by the programme countries.  We reiterate our position that UN development assistance, particularly its operational activities should not be   politicized and should be carried out on the principle of national ownership.  This, we believe, is essential to respect the sovereignty of the programme countries and to preserve the neutrality of the funds and programmes.

I thank you.