ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL COUNCIL, RESUMING 2003 SESSION, HEARS FROM AD HOC GROUP ON ACTIVITIES IN SUPPORT OF BURUNDI

Economic and Social Council

52^nd Meeting (AM)

ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL COUNCIL, RESUMING 2003 SESSION, HEARS FROM AD HOC GROUP

ON ACTIVITIES IN SUPPORT OF BURUNDI

President Briefs Members on Preparations

For April 2004 Meeting with Bretton Woods, UN Trade Agency

Resuming its 2003 substantive session, the Economic and Social Council heard a briefing this morning on the activities of the Ad Hoc Advisory Group on Burundi.  It also heard a brief address by its President on preparations for the Council’s April meeting with the Bretton Woods institutions and the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD).

The Ad Hoc Advisory Group on Burundi was established by the Council during the July meeting in Geneva of its 2003 substantive session.  Its mandate included examining the humanitarian and economic needs of Burundi, reviewing relevant assistance programmes, preparing recommendations for a long-term programme of support and providing advice on how to ensure adequate, coherent, well-coordinated and effective international assistance in support of the country that promoted synergy.

In addition to its Chairman, Dumisani Shadrack Kumalo of South Africa, the Group comprises Koichi Haraguchi (Japan), Abdul Mejid Hussein (Ethiopia), Marc Nteturuye (Burundi), Jean de Ruyt (Belgium) and Jean-Marc de la Sablière (France).  Ismael Abraao Gaspar Martins (Angola), Chairman of the Security Council’s Ad Hoc Working Group on Conflict Prevention and Resolution in Africa, and Gert Rosenthal (Guatemala), President of the Economic and Social Council, also took part in the Group’s work.

Mr. Kumalo, noting that much had happened since the Group’s establishment, said its activities had taken the form of two main phases.  In the first, a series of briefing sessions and consultations with relevant actors had been held in New York.  The sessions included meetings with major United Nations entities, namely the Department of Political Affairs, Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs and the United Nations Development Programme, as well as several United Nations agencies active on the ground in Burundi, such as the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), World Food Programme and International Fund for Agricultural Development.

The Group had also been briefed by the Human Rights Commission’s Special Rapporteur on the human rights situation in Burundi, he said.  It had held discussions with representatives of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, as well as with donor countries.  Also, the Group had met with Burundi’s President Domitien Ndayizeye upon his visit to the General Assembly in September.  All interlocutors had provided detailed information on their assistance programmes and on the obstacles faced in assisting Burundi, and through the meetings, the Group had received an overview of the challenges confronting the country and a better understanding of its relations with the development community.

In the second phase of its activities, the Group had visited Burundi from

19 to 26 November, he continued.  Within its extensive programme of meetings and consultations there, the Group had met with a range of national and international development stakeholders in Bujumbura, the capital.  It had also met again with the President, as well as with the Vice-President and had held a working session with a number of Cabinet ministers, led by the Minister of Planning, Development and Reconstruction.  Meetings had also been held with the bureaux of the Senate and National Assembly, and with the Implementation Monitoring Committee -– an independent body created to monitor the implementation of the Arusha Agreement for Peace and Reconciliation in Burundi –- and the National Commission for the Rehabilitation of Sinistrés –- a body created to coordinate support to refugees, internally displaced persons and returnees.

In other meetings, the Group encountered representatives of the Chamber of Commerce, Industry and Arts and Crafts of Burundi, he added.  It had also met with about 40 civil society organizations and visited Gitega –- a provincial capital in the centre of Burundi -– to meet with its Governor and members of the regional authority.  There had also been meetings with the diplomatic corps, the special representative of the President of the Commission of the African Union and the Chief of the African Mission in Burundi, as well as officials from the United Nations country team and non-governmental organizations.

He said the general sentiment on the visit was that it had been a highly informative, positive experience.  The Group had been impressed by the Government’s considerable work to engage the country on the path of sustainable development and to create the conditions for increased involvement by the international community.  Furthermore, significant progress regarding the peace process had also been witnessed.

Yet, while Burundi had never been as close to a comprehensive and fully inclusive peace as it was at present, he stressed that the country continued to face enormous humanitarian, economic and social challenges.  In addition to the need for reconstruction and development efforts, the expected return of large numbers of refugees and internally displaced persons would pose a specific problem.  Such challenges must be successfully confronted in order to sustain the peace process and improve the political situation.  And no matter how resolute the Government of Burundi, success would depend on strong international support and a genuine partnership with development partners.

With that fact in mind, he said, the Ad Hoc Advisory Group on Burundi had organized a forum of development partners, in partnership with Belgium, to be held in Brussels on 13 and 14 January 2004.  The meeting aimed to support the transition from the socio-economic chaos engendered by war to genuine development.

Council President Rosenthal, expressing his pleasure with the workings of its ad hoc advisory groups, said that in addition to the highly constructive experience in Burundi, they had brought about better relations between the Economic and Social Council and the Security Council.

Regarding his recent trip to Washington, D.C., he said it had been undertaken in order to make preparations for the forthcoming April meeting between the Council, the Bretton Woods institutions and UNCTAD, subsequent to the decision to include that agency in the meeting.  He had meet with a group of World Bank directors with the aim of agreeing on a timetable, so as to enable the Council to fine-tune the agenda of the April session, which would help ensure the meeting’s success and make it a shared experience between partners.

Also this morning, the Council deferred to a later date its decision on the dates for the meeting of the Ad Hoc Expert Group of the United Nations Forum on Forests on the “consideration, with a view to recommending the parameters of a mandate for developing a legal framework on all types of forests”.  It also decided to take up at a later date the makeup of its Bureau and the accreditation of non-governmental organizations.

The Economic and Social Council will meet again in 2004 at a time and date to be announced.

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