ECOSOC HOLDS GENERAL DEBATE ON UN OPERATIONAL ACTIVITIES

FOR INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT COOPERATION

Speakers Stress Need to Implement Targets of UN Conferences, Increase

Official Development Assistance, Make Development Programmes More Effective

(Reissued as received.)

GENEVA, 7 July (UN Information Service) -- The Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) this morning began its general debate on the operational activities of the United Nations with regard to international development coordination.  Under this agenda item, ECOSOC considers the follow-up to policy recommendations, including United Nations summits and conferences; reports of the Executive Boards of United Nations Funds and Programmes; and economic and technical cooperation among developing countries.

Making an introductory statement and introducing the reports of the Secretary-General, Patrizio Civili, Assistant Secretary-General for Policy Coordination and Inter-Agency Affairs, stressed that after an unprecedented commitment of the international community -- the Millennium Development Goals -- there was a need to harmonize and simplify the United Nations system; and to ensure integrated implementation, harmonization and monitoring, in order to allow the social and economic goals of developing countries to be realized.

Speaking on behalf of the "Group of 77" developing countries and China, Morocco expressed concern about the decline and stagnation of core resources available to many United Nations funds and programmes -- in spite of the increase in the needs of many developing countries and new challenges arising from globalization and liberalization.  Calling on all donor countries to increase their contributions to ensure a continued, predictable and sufficient funding of operational activities, he said that the international community should use the Monterrey consensus to work towards a real financing for development.

Italy, speaking on behalf of the European Union, recalled that in Barcelona, the European Union had made a formal commitment -- reconfirmed in Monterrey -- to collectively raise the Official Development Assistance levels to 0.39 per cent of the Gross National Income by 2006, as a first significant step towards the United Nations goal of 0.7 per cent of GDP.  The Monterrey Consensus, as well as the Millennium Declaration, remained the key axis for addressing the funding issue for the European Union.

Most of the discussion focused on resource allocation and the lack of resources for international development cooperation, but speakers also stressed the need to focus on the future operational activities of the United Nations; to simplify and harmonize work procedures; to improve coordination within the United Nations and with other organizations; and to monitor and evaluate country-level programmes and implement lessons learned.

Presenting the report of the Joint Inspection Unit on the extension of water-related technical cooperation projects to end-beneficiaries, Armando Duque Gonzales, Chairman of the Unit, said findings revealed that there were many opportunities for United Nations-system organizations to make progress on collaboration and coordination for operational activities, especially in water-related areas, and that more efforts needed to be deployed by the organizations to seize these opportunities.

Also participating in the general debate were representatives of Australia, United States, Russian Federation, China, Pakistan, Guatemala, India, Republic of Korea, Ukraine, Switzerland, Azerbaijan, Japan, Nigeria, and Chile.

Representatives of the World Health Organization, United Nations Population Fund, World Bank and the International Labour Office also addressed the meeting this morning.

The ECOSOC will reconvene this afternoon at 3 p.m. to continue and then conclude its general debate on operational activities of the United Nations for international development cooperation.

Documents

There is a report of the Secretary-General on operational activities of the United Nations for international development cooperation:  assessment of the lessons learned by United Nations organizations from evaluation activities at the field level (E/2003/64).  The report responds to a General Assembly resolution which requests the Secretary-General to carry out an impartial and independent assessment of the extent to which the United Nations at the field level learns lessons from evaluation, and to formulate proposals on how to improve the feedback mechanisms at the field level.  The report provides an assessment of how the United Nations system makes use of the available evaluation offices and relevant county-level evidence, focusing on the strengths and weaknesses of two processes:  how the system identifies lessons to be learned at the country-level and how the system disseminates these lessons, once identified.  The report suggests a few recommendations to the Council on how to enhance the evaluation function and its use at the country level, through measures that regard the individual organization or collaboration among the parts of the United Nations system, as a means of increasing the effectiveness of United Nations development cooperation.

There is the report of the Secretary-General on Funding of development cooperation of the United Nations system (E/2003/89) reviewing the conclusions reached at the triennial comprehensive policy review on resources for operational activities for development, and reviewing the progress made in funding development cooperation activities of the United Nations system.  The report analyses the issue of funding for the United Nations system’s development cooperation in the new context emerging from the Millennium Summit and the Monterrey Conference, and highlights the development role of the United Nations system through its operational structures.  It reviews the pattern of United Nations development funding, its trend and current modalities, outlines traditional public funding sources, as well as private initiatives and domestic resources, implications of the relationship with Bretton Woods institutions and consequences of the core funding shortfall, and concludes with a recommendation for renewed dialogue among Member States with a view to reaching agreement at the triennial comprehensive policy review in 2004 on strengthening the resource foundation for the operational work of the system.

There is a report of the Secretary-General on Comprehensive statistical data on operational activities for development for the year 2001 (E/2003/57) which provides detailed statistical data on resources channelled through the organizations of the United Nations system for the year 2001.

There is a report of the Secretary-General on the progress in the implementation of General Assembly resolution 56/201 (E/2003/61) on the triennial policy review of operational activities for development of the United Nations system, and in which the General Assembly had invited ECOSOC to evaluate the implementation of that resolution.  The report highlights new challenges and responsibilities for the United Nations development system, which called for continuing adjustment in the country-level functioning of the system so as to enhance its effectiveness.  It draws attention to system-wide mechanisms that were relevant, at the country level, for coordination, harmonization, funding, planning and evaluation of operational activities for development, and stresses specific cross-sectoral themes such as gender mainstreaming, capacity-building, South-South cooperation and interaction of development cooperation with humanitarian assistance.  The Council is invited to undertake this progress review with the aim of preparing the ground for the next triennial comprehensive policy review of operational activities which the General Assembly will conduct in 2004, and to provide guidance thereon to the Secretary-General.

There is the annual reports of the Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme and the Executive Director of the United Nations Population Fund to the Economic and Social Council (E/2003/13).  The report covers the implementation by UNDP and UNFPA of the reform programme of the Secretary-General and the provision of the triennial comprehensive policy review of operational activities for development of the United Nations system; and integrated follow-up to conferences and the Millennium Development Goals.  There is also the annual report of the Executive Director of the World Food Programme (E/2003/14) and the report of its Executive Board on the first, second and third regular sessions and annual session of 2002 (E/2003/36).  There is the report of the Executive Board of the United Nations Children’s Fund on the work of its first regular session of 2003 (E/2003/34 Part I) and on its annual session of 2003 (E/2003/34 Part II), the annual report of the Executive Director of UNICEF (E/2003/48) and an extract from the report of the Executive Board on the decisions adopted at its annual session of 2003 (E/2003/L.8).

Statements

PATRIZIO CIVILI, Assistant Secretary-General for Policy Coordination and Inter-Agency Affairs, introduced the reports of the Secretary-General under this agenda item, and said that the high-level panels had already addressed issues relating to the financing challenges of the United Nations system.  The dialogue with the executives of funds and agencies had allowed the Council to learn about respective funds and programmes.  The Secretary-General’s report illustrated the intensive efforts undertaken to achieve harmonization and simplification to do with programmes, their monitoring and evaluation.  The overriding objectives were to introduce ways that would produce savings in transaction costs to the benefit of recipient countries.

There was now an unprecedented commitment, with the Millennium Development Goals, to further harmonize and simplify the United Nations integrated approach to development.  After a cycle of Conferences and Summits, there was a need to ensure integrated implementation, harmonization and monitoring.  The new global partnerships that had been formed at these Conferences must lead to implementation to address the social and economic challenges developing countries faced.  There was a need for a sense of urgency and increased efficiency in country-level programmes, and the United Nations was working hard to fulfil its part of this responsibility.  The triennial policy reviews were important in this respect since they would assess the progress in this field.  The interventions of Members States were needed to provide the necessary guidelines for further assessment and analysis.

ARMANDO DUQUE GONZALES, Chairman of the Joint Inspection Unit, said that the findings of the report of the Joint Inspection Unit on the extension of water-related technical cooperation projects to end-beneficiaries revealed that there were many opportunities for United Nations-system organizations to make progress on collaboration and coordination for operational activities, especially in water-related areas, and that more efforts needed to be deployed by the organizations to seize these opportunities.  Among other recommendations, the report advocated the concept of an “operational United Nations Development Assistance Framework (UNDAF)”, which aimed to translate priorities and objectives agreed upon in the UNDAF document into concrete, integrated, technical cooperation programmes and projects to be designed and implemented jointly or in a coordinated manner by the United Nations organizations.  The report also called for the establishment of United Nations water committees at the expert level, as part of the measures called for to enhance the effectiveness of the Resident Coordinator system in facilitating joint programming and pooling of resources.

The objective sought in that recommendation referring to the work of the Administrative Committee on Coordination's (ACC) Subcommittee on Water Resources, he said, was to establish better linkages between the activities of the inter-agency coordination arrangement at the global level and those undertaken by the United Nations organizations at the country level.  These recommendations were not affected by changes in names of the ACC or the Subcommittee.  Of particular importance was the need to avoid detachment from the needs and realities at the country level and to play a supporting role for the United Nations system work and activities at that level, two important goals that the prior inter-agency coordination mechanism had largely failed to achieve.  In this context, there was a large need to establish common databases and knowledge networks in the area of water-related technical cooperation projects.  Moreover, the establishment of a Web site –- called for in recommendation 3 -– was a prerequisite for the visibility of the work of any entity in today’s world.

HASSAN ABOUTAHIR (Morocco), speaking on behalf of the Group of 77 and China, said that he was very concerned by the decline and stagnation of core resources available to many United Nations funds and programmes, in spite of the increase in the development needs of many developing countries and the new challenges arising from globalization and liberalization.  Calling on all donor countries to increase substantially their contributions to the core budgets of the United Nations system organizations to ensure a continued, predictable and sufficient funding of operational activities, he said that the international community should use the Monterrey consensus to work towards a real financing for development.

Conscious of the importance of evaluations in the management processes of the United Nations organizations, funds and programmes, he said that maximizing their benefits in terms of efficiency and effectiveness at the field level would require ensuring the participation of national authorities and relevant stakeholders in design, implementation and evaluation processes, including the development of indicators to measure successes and failures.  Furthermore, the framework for the next triennial comprehensive policy review (TCPR) should be focused upon the assessment, among others, of ways to ensure adequate funding levels for operational activities on a sufficient, predictable and assured basis; ways and means to improve assistance to developing countries; integration of operational activities for development of the United Nations system with national efforts and priorities for the enhancement of ownership; capacity-building; adequacy of human resources, expertise and skills available at the country level; progress in and value of harmonization and simplification processes; and ways to ensure better use and absorption of lessons learned in future design.

On the subject of the World Solidarity Fund, he welcomed the completion of formalities for setting up the Trust Fund, which was now ready to receive contributions.  The next step would be to set up a high-level committee to manage the Fund.  Calling upon UNDP to launch the worldwide awareness-raising campaign necessary for the Fund to achieve its objectives, he said that making the fund operational would take place as early as possible.

PAOLO BRUNI (Italy), speaking on behalf of European Union, said that the Union underlined the importance of more predictable and sustained funding for the United Nations system in the field of development.  The multi-year funding framework, adopted by a number of United Nations agencies, could in fact improve predictability and help donors in their financial planning of external assistance to beneficiary countries.  The Union attached special importance to the close connection between the Common Country Assessment (CCA), United Nations Development Assistance Framework (UNDAF) and the Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSP) in terms of coordination, coherence and complementarity.  The Union was convinced that all these efforts must strengthen the national capacity and reinforce the ownership of the development process in the beneficiary countries.

The European Union suggested that the Secretary-General focus the analysis of the triennial comprehensive policy review in 2004 on the assessment of issues such as the effectiveness of the reform of the United Nations operational activities in improving development results and outcomes, and increasing the coherence, efficiency and quality of programming at the country-level.  Particular attention must be paid to the value of CCA/UNDAF and the associated result matrix in improving operational activities; capacity-building for pursuing the goals, targets and commitments set in the United Nations Millennium Declaration and by the major United Nations conferences; and the results, outcomes and lessons learned at the country level from evaluation activities.

Concerning the Union’s specific actions in the field of the developing financing, he recalled that in Barcelona, the Union had made a formal commitment –- reconfirmed in Monterrey –- to collectively raise the Official Development Assistance levels to 0.39 per cent of the Gross National Income by 2006, as a first significant step towards the United Nations goal of 0.7 per cent of GDP.  This would be achieved thanks to substantial efforts by current European Union member States either to stay above 0.7 per cent or to strive to achieve at least 0.33 per cent, depending on each country’s starting point.  The Monterrey Consensus, as well as the Millennium Declaration, remained for the Union the key axis for addressing the funding issue.

MARK PALU (Australia) said that although national governments had the primary responsibility for the formulation and implementation of national development strategies, the international community could play a significant role in support of national efforts, in which context Australia had increased its aid budget for the 2003/04 financial year by 80 million Australian dollars, which represented an increase of 2.2 per cent in real terms.  However, it was still crucial for developing countries to use effectively both international and national resources.  As the stagnation in the provision of core resources to the United Nations system and the growth in earmarked funding reflected a global trend to assess more critically the performance of United Nations agencies, it was imperative for the United Nations system to ensure the maximum efficiency, effectiveness and relevance of its operations so as to attract sufficient regular resources to enable agencies to undertake their core mandates.

Australia would provide over 61 million Australian dollars in core support to United Nations development and humanitarian agencies in 2003/04, he said, in addition to which substantial non-core funding would be provided.  There was a need to do more to integrate the evaluation functions of different United Nations agencies for the attainment of a stronger country-level United Nations system evaluation capacity and to harmonize the work of the United Nations system in countries where the United Nations presence was limited.  Within the scope of moving toward joint offices and programming, the United Nations system should consider the introduction of genuine regional programmes with a mix of regional, subregional and some very specific bilateral activities in cases where the limited amount of available funds placed question marks over the cost effectiveness and impact of country specific programmes.  In the context of the 2004 triennial comprehensive policy review, there should be an emphasis on the assessment of the effectiveness of United Nations reforms in improving development outcomes and increased coherence of programming at the country level, further work on harmonization and simplification; and the outcomes and lessons learned at the country level from evaluation activities.

SICHAN SIV (United States) said that the United States valued the United Nations’ role in development and certainly agreed with the basic premise that the United Nations development capability must be sufficiently funded.  The report of the Secretary-General focused on official development assistance, but a broader discussion of other sources, especially an analysis of how to generate and enhance all manner of foreign and domestic resources, would have been useful.  The coming dialogue must be creative and resourceful, and the United States looked forward to participating in it.  The United States however held strongly to the principle of voluntary contributions and would not agree to have it altered.  This modality had served the system well and it had played a key role in moving the United Nations operational agencies towards the results-based, output-oriented corporate structure that was becoming increasingly relevant in worldwide development.

In the wake of Monterrey, large increases in official development assistance would be forthcoming.  The United States was interested in learning how the United Nations development system expected to incorporate this new funding into their country-level planning activities.  The United States wanted to see an effective United Nations development capability – one could not do without it.  The United States strongly supported United Nations operational agencies that produced results in assisting countries to develop good governance and sound policies with the aim of improving the lives of all their citizens.  

YURI V. FEDOTOV (Russian Federation) said that the 2004 triennial comprehensive policy review should focus on assisting countries to implement the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs); further integrating the operational activities of the United Nations system; enhancing the cooperation of the United Nations system and the Bretton Woods institutions; furthering harmonization and simplification of rules and procedures; national capacity building; ensuring adequate financing for development and the effective use of these resources; and ensuring the universality, neutrality, multilateral and non-refundable nature of such assistance.  As the targets for implementing the MDGs varied from country to country, they would need to be adapted to the socio-economic situation of each country and to national plans and priorities.

The need to work within the United Nations system for capacity-building remained a priority, he said, and the development of country strategies for capacity-building was supported.  There also needed to be further consolidation of the system of Resident Coordinators, in light of the role they would have to play in mobilizing country teams to achieve the MDGs.  The Russian Federation also viewed with importance the strengthening of interactions between the Bretton Woods organizations and the United Nations system at both the international and country levels.  Finally, complex crisis situations required interaction between humanitarian and development agencies to provide effective and coordinated response as early as possible.  The United Nations system had a substantial comparative advantage in this area, as a result of its global presence.

TINGRONG GONG (China) said that what concerned China the most was the insufficient core resources for operational activities for development.  Although the Funds and Programmes had made tremendous efforts, the increase of the core resources in the past two years had been very limited.  The long-term stagnation in resource flows had resulted in a decline of the resources base in real terms.  Because of the insufficient core resources, many operational activities for development had not been undertaken.  Many country programmes had had to be reduced or delayed for implementation, directly undermining the realization of the Millennium Development Goals.  It was time for countries to take concrete action, and it was China’s hope that the Funds and Programmes of the United Nations development system could continue to redouble their efforts, and try harder in resource mobilization.  At the same time, he appealed once again to the donors to seriously fulfil their commitments and increase core resource contributions.

The simplification and harmonization of the rules and procedures were very important to the United Nations development system, particularly at the field level.  China supported the concept of joint formulation of country programmes by the United Nations agencies at the field level, which was conducive to the integrated and coordinated implementation of United Nations major conferences and summits.  China suggested that the Funds and Programmes of the United Nations development system sum up at appropriate times the experiences shared in implementing capacity-building, and that their focus be on the lessons learned in order to achieve better results in overall capacity-building.

XAVIER LEUS, speaking of World Health Organization (WHO),said that contributing to development, especially in the areas of health status, and enabling countries to exert greater influence on global and regional public health activities had been a primary concern of WHO, within which context the transfer of knowledge and development of national capacity formed the core of WHO’s priorities.  The recent experience with the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) epidemic had made clear how investment in training and networking could come to fruition on a global scale.  Among the efforts undertaken to improve performance at the country level was the adoption of a strategic approach to better target WHO’s contribution to national priorities.  These Country Cooperation Strategies (CCSs) were the key instruments agreed on by national authorities and WHO to focus on a country’s health priorities.

He said that other efforts to improve WHO’s performance at the country level included improved coordination with other development partners of the United Nations system.  WHO joined the United Nations Development Group (UNDG) in 1999.  In the operationalization of the United Nations reform agenda at the country level, WHO concentrated its efforts on the additionality of value for health to country development, with an emphasis on the reduction of transaction costs for recipient countries, maximizing possibilities for capacity-building to counterparts, and safeguarding at the same time operational accountability within the United Nations system and outside partners.

MUNIR AKRAM (Pakistan) said that much of what he had to say on the issue of resources for the UNDP and its sister programmes had already been stated by other delegations.  Pakistan however attached primary importance to the operational activities of the United Nations and had always believed that the targets cited in the past, on the 15 per cent annual increase in the resources of the United Nations, must be followed.  The declining trend of core resources was a matter of concern, particularly as it seemed that priorities were being set according to the wishes of developed countries rather than developing countries.  He suggested that the prioritization of voluntary contributions could be determined by the Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs) of the respective countries.  These priorities were very clear and could be an important criterion for donors to follow in their resource allocation.

JOSE ALBERTO BRIZ (Guatemala) said that there was a shortage of basic resources to sustain the operational activities of the United Nations system for development, but hopefully the international conference on financing for development had helped to reverse this trend.  Having heard repeatedly that the United Nations had an irreplaceable comparative advantage in development due to its worldwide presence, it was to be hoped that all multilateral sources would engage to work together, in which context, it should be recognized that UNDP and the World Bank were not competitors, but should be engaged in complementary efforts to finance and implement development programmes.

In the case of UNDP, he said that despite the increase in mobilizing extra-budgetary resources, the base for core resources was clearly insufficient.  The United Nations had been successful in developing strategic and political guidelines for development in past years, but less successful in directly participating in the implementation of these guidelines at the country level.  Increasing resources would help to achieve a better balance between thought and action.  Moreover, it was hoped that the 2004 triennial comprehensive policy review would focus on the development of a programme for more robust sources for resourcing.

SHRI A. GOPINATHAN (India) said commitments had been made in a number of conferences on new and additional resources.  The time had now clearly come to make good on these commitments.  Developing countries attached importance to the United Nations’ operational activities, and most of them had unambiguously articulated their preference for external assistance being channelled through the United Nations funds and programmes.  It was, therefore, unfortunate that the resource situation of these organizations remained tenuous, at best.  India was also concerned with the rapid decline of core resources as a percentage of total resources.  This could only be detrimental to the confidence which progamme countries had in these organizations as trusted and neutral development partners.

The reports of the Secretary-General had also drawn attention to the trend of humanitarian assistance crowding out the resources required for development.  This was a matter for serious concern.  India had often pointed out that development assistance, in the long term, reduced the need for emergency humanitarian assistance.  Drought was a natural hazard which was often unavoidable.  It need not, however, inevitably lead to disaster.  Famine could be prevented through long-term development assistance which would make the socio-economic system resilient to the impact of natural disasters.  Such assistance, in India’s view, was a sensible option to pursue.

OH HYUN-JOO (Republic of Korea) said that the adoption of a standard format for reporting and annual planning within the Country Programme Action Plans (CPAP) and the development of new standard documents such as the United Nations Development Assistance Framework (UNDAF) Results Matrix, the Annual Output Work Plan and the UNDAF Monitoring and Evaluation Plans and Final Evaluations were welcomed.  It was hoped that additional efforts to expand common premises, shared services and joint offices under the rubric of the United Nations house initiative would be undertaken.  The increase in core resources in 2002 was also welcomed.  Commending efforts to improve the quality support and assurance for country teams, she offered support for the call for United Nations country teams and resident coordinators to continue to facilitate the involvement of the entire United Nations system in the formulation of Common Country Assessments and UNDAF.

As seen in Afghanistan and Iraq, she said, humanitarian assistance had become an increasingly essential component of the United Nations’ operational activities.  The resident coordinator system should develop and employ a flexible and integrated approach to meet the needs of the progressively more complex emergency situations facing the international community.  On the subject of lessons learned from evaluations, the information garnered from these evaluations should be better utilized by enhancing the capacity for identifying, categorizing and synthesizing lessons learned, creating and promoting access to national databases and publications of lessons learned and having the General Assembly include lessons learned in their assessment of the overall efficacy of the operational activities for development of the United Nations system in the next triennial comprehensive policy review.

I. SAGACH (Ukraine) said the comprehensive vision for development that had emerged from the recent conferences and summits in economic and social fields had brought the operational aspects to the forefront of the global development agenda.  Ukraine wished to echo other delegations' sentiments in underscoring the critical importance of the United Nations operational activities for the governments of programme countries in their efforts to achieve internationally agreed upon development goals.  A visible progress had been made by the United Nations system in enhancing and rationalizing its operational activities.  There were encouraging indications that field-level coordination was progressing well.

It was stressed that national ownership, commitment and responsibilities of the governments at the national level were vital for achieving sustainable development.  Ukraine placed great importance to the international development goals adopted by the United Nations Millennium Summit.  In formulating policies, strategies and programmes of socio-economic development, the MDGs were duly taken into account.  An inter-ministerial process was underway to consider targets and indicators that were tailored to Ukraine’s current development agenda.

KUNIO WAKI, of United Nation Population Fund (UNFPA), said that tremendous progress had been made in the last 18 months, particularly in the area of simplification and harmonization.  UNFPA had been a very active member of the inter-agency task force on simplification and harmonization from the beginning.  The current drive toward further progress in this area had been facilitated by the adoption of a unifying development agenda –- the Millennium Development Goals –- and the renewed focus on poverty reduction in all its facets.  At the same time, national poverty reduction strategies and the Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs) were increasingly providing the much-needed programmatic framework for a coordinated and coherent response of programme countries and their development partners to poverty.  In addition to having advanced well in the process of aligning common instruments within the context of the United Nations Development Group (UNDG), UNFPA had revised its own operational guidelines to fully integrate UNDG guidelines into its programming process.  National plans and priorities had always been, and remained, the central focus of UNFPA’s support and assistance.

UNFPA and its sister organizations and agencies in the UNDG, he said, had taken core messages and instructions to heart in revising their operational activities.  Desirous for the current simplification and harmonization efforts to succeed, he warned, however, that processes, guidelines and good intentions alone would not do the trick.  The strong and sustained commitment of all concerned partners would be needed to keep the United Nations and its agencies and organizations an effective partner for development.

FRANÇOIS ROHNER (Switzerland) said the high-level segment and the roundtable on United Nations financing and programmes had shown how operational activities were faced with new demands at the same time as facing more and more challenges.  He noted with satisfaction the adoption of the work programme of the last triennial review, which had made significant progress.  Today, effects at the country-level were being felt.  The efforts undertaken to harmonize and simplify procedures to ensure the realization of the Millennium Development Goals were appreciated.  However, efforts must be intensified, particularly the simplification of working procedures.  Switzerland believed that Funds and Programmes must be further involved in the international discussions about the effectiveness of aid.  The United Nations system had major contributions to make to the debate, a debate which sometimes tended to stray from reality.

The Council must look at the future of operational activities, he said.  Last Thursday's debate had shown how important it was to place these questions in a broader context of the development process in general.  The Secretary-General must begin to produce statistics on all development institutions and regularly provide the Council with identified trends, allowing it to assess the state of funding in comparison to other institutions.

HUSNIYYA MAMADOVA (Azerbaïjan) said that the issue of rationalizing and improving the functioning of the United Nations agencies and organizations was important and that there was a need, as well, to strengthen capacity and national infrastructure.  Stressing the importance of the evaluation process, she expressed her Government’s readiness to be involved in such evaluation processes and said that the involvement of regional commissions upon the specific request of a government, to conduct an analysis of lessons learned, should be encouraged.  Furthermore, the interactions between UNDP and the World Bank at the country level should be encouraged.

There was an urgent need to develop and apply a strategic framework between humanitarian and development efforts in situations of crisis, she added.  Moreover, in terms of human resources, complex situations required that there should be an adherence to standards of strong professional qualifications among country team members, who should also be provided with any necessary training.  Expressing appreciation of the country teams’ efforts to strengthen grassroots-level efforts to reach all peoples, she said that while ECOSOC should provide guidance for the United Nations’ operational activities, a strengthened dialogue between ECOSOC, the World Trade Organization and the Bretton Woods institutions would contribute to better coherence in their particular development activities.  There was also a need for adequate funding; increased non-core funding could not replace core resources.

KAZUYA SHIMMURA (Japan) said the operational activities of the United Nations must be conducted effectively and efficiently and must produce tangible results that contributed to the realization of the Millennium Development Goals and other internationally agreed targets.  Efforts to address basic human needs in such areas as education, health care, water, and agriculture were essential for the achievement of the MDGs.  On the other hand, Japan believed that robust, broad-based and equitable economic growth was also essential in order to significantly reduce poverty.  It was important that the United Nations agencies continued to assist developing countries by taking into account both economic growth and social development.  It was also critical that they did so by coordinating activities among themselves and in partnership with the World Bank.  Japan had been providing assistance that contributed to economic growth through infrastructure development, as well as assistance for the social sector in developing countries.

Japan had also been providing considerable sums of money as financial assistance, and it was among the top donors to UNDP, UNFPA, UNICEF and WFP by making large contributions to their core resources.  Japan was also actively cooperating with the United Nations agencies by providing resources for non-core funding, for activities such as humanitarian assistance and reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq.  Core resources were indispensable for the support of the activities of the United Nations which were of a universal and neutral nature, and for meeting their basic administrative costs.  Non-core resources were complementary to core resources but played an important role in meeting specific objectives or ad hoc needs.

EDUARDO DORYAN (World Bank) said that all development partners should continue to work on the unfinished development agenda of the twentieth century, as addressed at the Millennium, Monterrey and Johannesburg Summits.  For operational activities for effective development, the strong global linkage between trade and development, the full accomplishment of debt efforts related to HIPC and an international dynamic economy to stimulate further foreign direct investment were salient elements of developing a global enabling environment.  Moreover, the bedrock of the country development edifice was a development strategy from which country governments and other societal actors could create the platform on which to focus organization, coherence and effectiveness within their national decision making processes.

It was also important to draw lessons and examples from specific country experience, he said, and to raise systemic issues such as the need to increase levels of official development aid (ODA).  Finally, it was also imperative to continue the process of harmonization to include all development partners, including the broader United Nations system, international financial institutions, bilaterals and others to streamline procurement, reporting and programming processes, and to grapple with the management challenge in order to begin to be able to talk about development effectiveness as the rule, and not the exception.

OLUSEGUN AKINSANYA (Nigeria) said that in order to achieve the internationally agreed upon development goals, the international community must shed its toga of doing business as usual.  Action and the fulfilment of commitments by all parties must be the guiding philosophy if the confidence of the 1.2 billion poor people of the world and the credibility of the United Nations was to be sustained.  There was already a growing feeling of cynicism and disenchantment with the outcomes of international conferences and summits and their effects on poverty eradication, hunger, malnutrition and killer diseases.  Against this backdrop it was stressed that development cooperation was a pact between partners; each partner must fulfil its role and obligations if meaningful results were to be achieved.  The ultimate goal was to produce credible, measurable and quantifiable results.

Funding of the United Nations system must be commensurate with the role and mandate of the system.  Funding for operational activities remained precarious.  On the other hand, non-core resources and the stringent conditions tied to their use were on the increase.  Nigeria was concerned that funding for almost all United Nations funds and programmes showed the same pattern of stagnation or decline in core resources and an increase in non-core resources.  Moreover, the funding did not take into account the priorities, needs and concerns of developing countries.  The international community must muster the collective will and commitment to multilateral development cooperation, and the United Nations must endeavour to reshape and strengthen its instruments for sustainable development and poverty eradication in the developing countries.

JOHN LANGMORE (International Labour Office) said that the preparation of Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs) was an important avenue of support for country-level programmes by the United Nations system and Bretton Woods institutions.  Yet in their preparation, the extent of broad-based participation had varied greatly.  The United Nations system could improve its participation in the elaboration of PRSPs in a number of ways, such as through better appreciation of and participation in their construction, better collaboration with the Bretton Woods institutions, the alignment of CCA and UNDAF into PRSPs, the harmonization of procedures, and increased technical capacity.

Generally, although the PRSPs defined poverty, they did not indicate sufficient policy prescriptions to deal with it, he said.  More attention needed to be focused on issues, among others, such an employment, social protection, gender, the changing age structure of populations and disability.  Also, the PRSPs’ relation to national policy should be strengthened by encouraging effective integration and rigorous application, to include aspects of employment growth and poverty reduction as essential goals of national policy.  Finally, in relation to external resource mobilization, more resources were needed to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs); and although increased official development assistance (ODA) was helpful, other avenues should be considered, such as the British proposal for an international finance facility, restarting the issue of special drawing rights and decreasing the prevalence of tax evasions.

CLAUDIO ROJAS (Chile) said his delegation attached particular importance to the triennial review of the United Nations operational activities.  Being at an intermediate level of development, it was highlighted that the Government had stepped up its resource allocation for the most needed sectors.  There were still pockets of poverty which could be more easily eradicated with the assistance and advice of international development institutions, particularly the United Nations.  It was stressed that the UNDP office in Santiago had been most helpful in the eradication of these pockets of poverty.  The efforts made by the United Nations system were welcomed and Chile encouraged continued harmonization and simplification.  It was stressed that medium-level countries continued to need international development assistance.

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