ASSEMBLY PRESIDENT ADDRESSES COMMEMORATIVE MEETING ON 20 YEARS OF TCDC
Press Release
DEV/2184
GA/SM/68
ASSEMBLY PRESIDENT ADDRESSES COMMEMORATIVE MEETING ON 20 YEARS OF TCDC
19981007 Following is the text of an address given today by General Assembly President Didier Opertti to a commemorative meeting of the Assembly marking the twentieth anniversary of the Buenos Aires Plan of Action for Promoting and Implementing Technical Cooperation Among Developing Countries:We are gathered here to commemorate an historical event in the history of international development cooperation. The United Nations Conference on Technical Cooperation among Developing Countries (TCDC), held in Buenos Aires from 30 August to 12 September 1978, was a major milestone in the continuing efforts of the United Nations system to foster international cooperation for development which, as we all know, is one of the fundamental objectives of our Organization. The Conference endorsed the Buenos Aires Plan of Action as a policy framework for improving the structure of international relations by placing greater emphasis on the use of the increasing technical and scientific capacities of developing countries in the promotion of socio-economic development in the South.
The Plan indicates that the ultimate goal of TCDC is the promotion of national and collective self-reliance among developing countries, on the one hand, and global partnership on the other. Accordingly, for the past 20 years, the Buenos Aires Plan of Action has provided a policy framework for developing countries to advance their self-reliance through the harnessing and utilization of capacities existing within their borders.
To underscore the continued importance of global partnership in international development cooperation, the Plan emphasizes that TCDC is complementary to but not a substitute for traditional forms of North/South development cooperation. It assigns primary responsibility to developing countries for organizing, managing and financing TCDC but calls upon the United Nations development system to play a catalytic and promotional role in advancing TCDC.
The Plan sets forth a number of TCDC objectives that require developing countries to enhance their creative and technological capacities for development by pooling and sharing their human and technical resources in all spheres of development; increasing the quality and quantity of international
cooperation; and improving and expanding communication among them at national, sub-regional, regional and inter-regional levels.
The continued validity of the Buenos Aires Plan of Action has been repeatedly reaffirmed by the General Assembly, the Economic and Social Council, and by the conferences and governing bodies of many specialized agencies. In particular, General Assembly resolution 46/159 states that technical cooperation among developing countries remains a key element in global economic cooperation; in resolution 48/172, the Assembly went further and urged Member States, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and other organizations of the United Nations development system to give high priority and full support to TCDC in their respective fields of competence.
Since the 1970s, developing countries have increasingly used the TCDC framework to strengthen the bonds of cooperation among themselves in formal sub-regional and regional integration arrangements and in the context of looser cooperative exchanges established among them. They have sought to promote a genuine partnership among themselves on the understanding that each country has resources and capacities to offer as well as needs to be satisfied by others. Many countries have taken the initiative to formulate clear policies and appropriate institutional arrangements in order to ensure a coordinated approach and to find common solutions to shared problems within the framework of TCDC. In the wake of recent trends towards globalization, TCDC is increasingly being recognized as an important instrument for enabling countries of the South to participate effectively in the newly-emerging global order, the more so, considering the tendency by industrialized countries to cut down their official development assistance, particularly regarding the provision of funds to multilateral programmes and agencies.
In order to realize the full potential of TCDC and to live up to the expectations raised by the Buenos Aires Plan of Action 20 years ago, all Member States -- both developed and developing -- must seize the momentum and build upon past achievements in TCDC. This requires continued efforts to make the potential of TCDC widely understood, to strengthen the effectiveness of national policies, procedures and focal points for TCDC; and to promote information sharing among developing countries at sub-regional, regional, inter-regional and global levels. It also requires the international community to be more forthcoming in financing TCDC activities.
This Commemorative Meeting is an opportune moment for the world community to summon the political will necessary to overcome factors hindering the optimal utilization of capacities and resources in the South to accelerate development throughout the developing world. Given the prevailing mix of opportunities and challenges presented by globalization, the potential of TCDC needs to be fully exploited through exchanges whereby the more developed countries render a helping hand to the less developed in mutually beneficial partnerships. The promising prospects of increased trade and investment
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opportunities in the South are discernible in the current demographic projection, which indicates that by the year 2025, nearly 7 billion of the projected world population of 8.5 billion will be inhabitants of the South. This suggests tremendous scope for increased market and investment opportunities for the South to capitalize on.
Responding to the recommendations of Buenos Aires Plan of Action in the context of globalization requires developed and developing countries to work cooperatively, focusing more on creating national, as well as global conditions and institutions through which the goals of equitable development and private enterprise can flourish.
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