Madam Chair,

1. I have the honour to deliver this statement on behalf of the Group of 77 and China. The Group welcomes this opportunity to present the views of developing countries on issues that are fundamental to strengthening the development pillar of the United Nations. We are of the view that enhancing the UN system's capacity to improve its response to the development needs of countries is vital, and speaks to the relevance of the Organization, in light of the many pressing development challenges we currently face.

2. We are confident that our work in this segment this year would guide the other processes that have an immediate and direct bearing on the UN operational activities, and thank the Secretariat for the useful Reports which will facilitate our discussion.

Madam Chair,

3. The fundamental characteristics of the UN operational activities for development must remain, inter alia, the universal, voluntary and grant nature, the neutrality and the multilateralism, as well as their ability to respond to the development needs of program countries in a flexible manner. Moreover, the operational activities should be carried out for the benefit of recipient countries, at the request of those countries and in accordance with their own policies and priorities for development.

4. The importance of the regional dimension of development is manifested in the mandates given to the regional commissions in the outcomes of the major UN Conferences and Summits. Improved coherence at the regional level will require strengthening existing UN regional mechanisms for horizontal coordination, and ensuring a vertical link-up and alignment in the UN development and coordination architecture at the global, regional, and country levels.

Madam Chair,

5. The need for a strengthened global partnership for development, based on the recognition of national leadership and ownership of development strategies should be a guiding principle of UN operational activities at the country level. Partners should provide support for the realization of the objectives and goals of national development strategies.

6. The Group underscores the importance for the UN System to enhance its implementation efforts while ensuring the realization of national ownership and leadership of development processes. It is crucial to set into motion actions for enhancing coordination with national governments, as well as for favoring greater participation of national authorities in the preparation and development of all planning and programming documents of the UN system, including the Common Country Assessment (CCA) and the United Nations Development Assistance Framework (UNDAF).

7. Also underscores that operational activities must respond to the development needs of programme countries in a flexible manner and be carried out for the benefit of programme countries, at the request of those countries and in accordance with their own policies and priorities for development.

Madam Chair,

8. It is essential that the implementation of resolution 62/208 includes a broader and more expeditious realization of the global partnership for development, as set out in the outcomes of major UN summits and conferences in the economic, social and related fields, such as the Millennium Declaration, the Monterrey Consensus and the Plan of Implementation of the World Summit on Sustainable Development.

9. The Group emphasizes the need for a strengthened global partnership for development, based on the recognition of national leadership and ownership of development strategies should be a guiding principle of UN operational activities at the country level. Partners should provide support for the realization of the objectives and goals of national development strategies. The entire UN system as well as the BWIs and bilateral donors should recognize the ownership of the concerned developing countries, align their cooperation programmes with the national development strategies and also harmonize their individual cooperation programmes with a view to making the optimum contribution to the realization of national development strategies.

10. For the large part, the development assistance offered - multilaterally and bilaterally - is not responsive to national policies and plans, since it is mostly earmarked to donor determined sectors and projects. Moreover, such development financing is often accompanied by conditionalities; it is tied to procurement from the donor country and often expended largely on expensive consultants and experts from UN agencies or donor organizations. This results in distorting the support provided by the UN development system for implementing national priorities of program countries. Besides, this also injects pervasive unpredictability in funding, which in turn seriously jeopardizes the UN's overall development agenda.

Madam Chair,

11. The Group overemphasizes that success in implementing resolution 62/208 depends on addressing fundamental issues related to the funding of operational activities for development. The quantity, quality and predictability of development assistance from the UN system constitute a central priority for developing countries, and is a prerequisite for development effectiveness. Additionally, the growing imbalance between core and non-core resources for operational activities must be addressed as a matter of urgency in the context of implementation. The increasing shift from core to non-core funding leads to fragmentation and can impair the effectiveness and efficiency of operational activities, as non-core resources are unpredictable, increase transaction costs, causing competition among organizations, inefficiency, incoherence and fragmentation of the UN system, including at the country level. It is, therefore, essential to restore the balance between core and non-core funding resources as well as to ensure an expanding and adequate base of resources for development.

12. It is important that operational activities for development, in addressing the long-term development challenges of recipient countries, take into account the need to promote national capacity building in developing countries. For developing countries to address national priorities and achieve internationally agreed development goals, a continuous process of capacity building is required to which the UN system can make a significant contribution. In this regard, the UN system should make optimal use of the available national expertise and technologies, ensuring the promotion and transfer of new technologies to developing countries, increasing system-wide capacity in support of recipient countries by enabling and facilitating the access of the recipient countries to the full range of services available throughout the entire UN system, including the regional commissions. The UN system should promote the sharing of information on the best practices in its operational activities at the country level.

13. The Group of 77 and China looks forward for continuous opportunities to convey its views on the on-going implementation of the guidance on operational activities. We also would like to request the UN system to duly take into account the views expressed by the Group on this issue during the implementation process.

Madam Chair,

14. The Group of 77 and China reaffirms the importance of the Comprehensive Policy Review of operational activities, through which the General Assembly establishes key system wide policy orientation for the development cooperation and country-level modalities of the UN system including the UNDP. We believe that the TCPR should determine the course of action for UN operational activities and should not be superceded or preempted by other processes.

15. The primary thrust of Comprehensive Policy Review process should be driven by a vision of a stronger role for the United Nations on development issues, and by the need to fully implement all agreed commitments from all the major United Nations Summits and Conferences in the economic, social and related fields including IADGs and MDG.

Madam Chair,

16. On the issue of transition from relief to development, more emphasis should be placed on the importance of enhancing coordination with national governments. And to the strengthening of inter-departmental and inter-agency coordination in the context of transition from relief to development, it is vital that projected actions refer to the need for coordination approaches to take into account the complexity of challenges countries in those circumstances face and the country specific character of those challenges. It is clear that the UN system has a role to play in supporting the efforts of middle income countries in order to address the significant challenges that they face in the area of poverty eradication, including through support to the effective development of comprehensive cooperation policies.

Madam Chair,

17. The guiding principle of the UN operational activities should provide more efficiency in delivery. The savings acquired as a result of the streamlining resulting from any system-wide coherence exercise should be rechanneled into the development cluster of the UN, and not to be directed into other activities beyond that context.

18. The Group would like to stress that the outcome of the Operational Segment of ECOSOC should therefore serve that purpose, i.e. it should improve the effectiveness of the UN system's response to the development needs and priorities of developing countries. The Council should therefore provide clear and direct guidance to the system, including its funds, programmes and specialized agencies, for the full implementation of GA resolution 62/208 on operational activities for development.

19. Finally, Madam Chair, the Group of 77 and China reiterates its view that the advancement of the UN's development agenda rests with the full implementation of the TCPR resolution, including through the enhancement of the UN system's operational capacity to respond more broadly, effectively and efficiently to the needs and priorities of developing countries in support of their efforts to achieve the IADGs, including the MDGs.

Thank you, Madam Chair.