Mr. Assistant Secretary- General for Development Coordination, Excellencies, Distinguished delegates,

I have the honor to deliver this statement on behalf of the Group of 77 and China.

I commend the Assistant Secretary- General for Development Coordination for convening this plenary informal consultation on the Funding Compact for the United Nations development system. The United Nation Development Systems is key in supporting States to implement the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, particularly in developing countries.

The G77 and China expresses its appreciations to you and your team for the first draft Funding Compact and its draft framework for Global Level for Monitoring and Reporting, which form a basis for consultations. The G77 and China is agreeable to the approach on the draft Compact being more concise, objective, explainable, applicable, impactful, and less technical. Therefore, we intend to engage constructively in the consultation process on this funding compact.

The G77 and China as reiterated in the previous consultations remains concerned about the low funding of UN development activities. We therefore wish to highlight the following issues on the first draft funding compact:

First, with regard to objective one: "A more strategic and responsive UN development system, delivering SDG results anchored in UN principles and values," the new compact should contain strong commitments in the following areas:

a) In additional to an aspirational minimum percentage, mechanisms (automatic conversion from earmarked to regular or maximum percentage of earmarked each year; or a levy on earmarked) to ensure a minimal percentage for regular resources necessary for comprehensive and balanced implementation of multilateral and entity- specific mandates, particularly programming at country level;

b) Significant shifts from highly earmarked resources to more flexible forms of funding, notably regular resources, and pooled funds;

c) Broadening the base of OECD Development Assistance Committee donor countries, as only 10 out of 32 OECD-DAC countries contribute over 50% of the total revenue of UN entities. The G77 and China underscores that developing countries are already facing enormous financing challenges, which undermine their efforts to fully implement the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. In this regard, the Group therefore calls upon more developed countries to join the number of contributors to broaden the base of contributors, and;

d) No competition with regular resources, which are critical to enable the UNDS entities to delivery results.

Second, as far as commitments for the entities of the UNDS, we believe the future funding compact should contemplate, inter alia, the following key elements:

a) More effective financial management, with a specific item for guidance and monitoring of measures for operational efficiency gains;

b) More and better databases and information and measurement tools for tracking of results achieved on the ground by the entities of the UNDS, such as on their contribution to the achievement of the targets associated with the SDGs. A more expedited consolidation of SDG indicators will be helpful to that end. These proposals are in line with objective three of the first draft, on "A more efficient and streamlined UN development system", and;

c) In addition, the flexibility of reallocating resources specifically to fund the underfunded development activities of the entities;

The G77 and China reiterate our call for strengthening the core funding and reducing the levels of earmarking as the best solution to ensure that the UN Development System has adequate, predictable, and sustainable funding to enable the UNDS entities to provide the required support to programme countries in the pursuit of their national development priorities and needs.

Once again, the G77 and China remains committed to engage in the consultations actively and constructively on the funding compact, with the view to deliver better results that will improve the funding of UNDS to support the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals.

I thank you.