Trade and Development Board, 63rd Session: UNCTAD contribution to the implementation of and follow-up to the outcomes of the major United Nations conferences and summits in the economic and social fields

​

​

Mr. President
Distinguished delegates,

Good afternoon.

Every year, UN conferences and summits articulate our collective vision, but it is the implementation of their mandates and follow-up what transforms our aspirations of today in the reality of tomorrow.

In this spirit, the UN General Assembly has sought to harness UNCTAD institutional capacity to provide implementation and follow-up to the outcomes of major UN conferences and summits.

The report you have before you contains a review of UNCTAD contributions to the implementation and follow-up to the major UN conferences and summits in the economic and social fields. In isolation, there is only so much that UNCTAD can do. But in concert with the UN system and our partners in civil society, government, and the private sector, we can achieve lasting transformation. And we invest significantly in trying to do our part in "Delivering as One", as UN system, to the benefit of members.

As you can see in the report, our contributions have covered a wide front in areas related to our mandate: international trade, commodities, investment and enterprise development, global and macroeconomic issues, debt and development finance issues, and technology for development and our contributions to countries in special situations (Least Developed Countries, Small Islands Development States, Landlocked Developing States).

For example, during the period of July 2015 until June 2016, UNCTAD made significant contributions to, inter alia, the follow-up to Financing for Development, the successful adoption and start of implementation of Agenda 2030 (not least the work on relevant indicators for the 17 Goals and 169 Targets), WSIS+10 Forum (which we co-hosted), the UN Conference on Landlocked Developing Countries, the Midterm Review of the Istanbul Program of Action, etc. We chaired the UN Group on Information Society (until May 2016) and we continued to lead the UN system efforts on Trade and Productive Capacity Cluster. We also took part in COP21 and WTO Ministerial Conference at the end of last year, raising issues of particular concern for developing countries' trade. And we continued to assist and provide inputs to G20 deliberations, including through being tasked to lead the investment workstream of the Trade and Investment Working Group.

In the interest of brevity and not to repeat what you have already read, I will not go in the details of the report.

But I wish to add one point of clarification on the FfD follow-up, in light of the decision in Nairobi to set up an IGE on FfD. The AAAA is key to provide the adequate means of implementation for Agenda 2030. And, as you know, UNCTAD is the only international organization that has a mandate on every target of Goal 17 of the SDGs. This, combined with the fact that we are one of only five major institutional stakeholders of FfD (together with IMF, WB, WTO and UNCDP), gives us a particular role - indeed responsibility - to ensure effective and adequate efforts are deployed to muster the resources and tools necessary to implement all of the other goals in Agenda 2030.

During the earlier part of this year, an Inter-Agency Task Force for FfD follow-up was established, much thanks to UNCTAD's proactive engagement. An early result of the work of this task force was the first FfD report, launched at ECOSOC Forum for FfD in April 2016. UNCTAD played a very significant part in drafting this report. In fact, we substantially contributed - and even were co-lead - to five out of its seven chapters.

Through the establishment of the IGE on FfD, we will be in a position to better involve our Members and the Geneva-community in this important and ongoing work in the future.


I hope, through the report we have provided you with a useful overview of our work.

I look forward to your deliberations and your comments on how UNCTAD can improve its contributions to the implementation and follow-up on the outcomes of major UN conferences and summits.

Thank you very much.