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Statement by the Foreign Minister of the Republic of South
Africa H. E. Dr Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma, Chair of the Group of 77 on the Occasion
of the Handing over Ceremony of the Chairmanship of the Group of 77, New York,
10 January 2007 Your Excellency, Mr. Makhdum Khusro Bakhtyar, Minister
of State for Foreign Affairs of Pakistan,
Your Excellency Mr. Ban Ki-moon,
Secretary-General of the United Nations,
Your Excellency Ambassador Frank Majoor,
Acting President of the General Assembly
Your Excellency Mr. Supachai Panitchpakdi,
Secretary-General of UNCTAD
Excellencies,
Ladies and Gentlemen, Allow
me to begin by wishing you all a happy and prosperous New Year. Also I wish to
extend a warm welcome to H.E. Mr. Ban Ki-moon, Secretary-General of the United
Nations and to congratulate him for his election to lead the Organization and
I wish to assure him of our full support and cooperation. I wish to particularly
thank the Secretary-General for appointing Dr. Asha-Rose Mtengeti-Migiro as Deputy
Secretary-General. Dr. Migiro is not only well qualified for this important post
but will bring with her the perspective of the developing countries. Dr Migiro
is one of three women among the top five senior appointments made by the Secretary
General since taking office. Clearly, this is a welcome improvement to gender
representivity in the Secretariat that has been sorely lacking and our Group commits
to supporting the Secretary-General and his team in their important tasks. Let
me also acknowledge the presence of Mr. Supachai Panitchpakdi, Secretary-General
of UNCTAD and welcome him to this meeting. Your Excellencies, In January
2006 when South Africa assumed the Chair of the Group of 77 and China we stated
that South Africa looked forward to reaffirming the principles of the Group and
to strengthen our unity, cohesion and vision of a fair and equitable multilateral
system. We also assured you that South Africa would spare no effort in ensuring
that we collectively enhance the development agenda of the South. We hope
that we have fulfilled this pledge during our tenure as Chair of the Group of
77 and China. Throughout 2006, there have been intense, hard and lengthy
negotiations with the developed countries that resulted in positive outcomes for
the Group of 77 and China. This has been due to the solidarity and collective
spirit of our Members to articulate and promote our collective interests and enhance
our joint negotiating capacity on all major issues, including those pertaining
to the follow-up to the 2005 World Summit Outcome. It is worth recalling that
the Group achieved these successes often under extreme pressure. Your Excellencies, We
live in a world in which international economic relations are marked by uncertainty,
imbalances and recessions that result in the continued marginalization of developing
countries, in particular the least developed countries. The collapse of the Doha
Development Round has been a setback for developing countries in that it has perpetuated
the high tariffs, trade distortions and the continued forbidden access to the
markets for developing countries. Our Group must remain steadfast in its commitment
to see the resumption in the Doha negotiations as one way to realize a just and
equitable global economic and social regime - in order to achieve a better life
for all. With the adoption of the resolution strengthening the Economic
and Social Council, and another General Assembly resolution on the Development
Follow-up, together with the ECOSOC Ministerial Declaration, the Group succeeded
in maintaining a strong central theme of enhancing the global partnership for
development, and the necessity of strengthening international obligations, commitments
and their full and timely implementation of commitments already made. The
Group has furthermore continued to emphasize that the United Nations system, including
the Bretton Woods institutions and the World Trade Organization, must translate
all commitments made at the major United Nations Conferences and Summits in the
economic, social and related fields into action. We have continued to call
for concerted multilateral action to achieve the internationally agreed development
goals, including the Millennium Development Goals (MSGs) as a means towards solving
economic and social problems and promoting peace and security. We have also worked
for the creation of an enabling international economic environment in order to
support developing countries efforts to achieve sustained economic growth and
sustainable development. On achieving the Millennium Development Goals,
we have stressed the fact that in spite of appropriate measures taken, and the
tremendous efforts made by developing countries to build enabling environments
for development, the support received from development partners is still insufficient
for substantial economic growth and economic development. We emphasized the imperative
need for the full and timely implementation of all the outcomes of all major conferences
and summits in the economic, social and related fields in order to meet the MDGs
target date of 2015. The Group of 77 and China identified the promotion
of gender equality as one of the most effective ways to eradicate poverty and
to achieve development, peace and security. We furthermore supported the central
role of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) in the follow-up to, and review
of, the implementation of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action and
the outcome of the twenty-third special session and its broad mandate in covering
women's human rights and its social and economic dimensions. The overall
result of our solidarity and collective positions throughout 2006 has resulted
in a greater understanding and respect for the positions of developing countries,
and also our positions, interests, needs and aspirations. This has placed international
economic, financial and social development obligations and commitments firmly
on the United Nations Agenda and has once again reinforced the vital role of multilateralism
and, in particular, the important role of the United Nations system in promoting
economic and social development. Your Excellencies, The past year
will also be remembered as one in which the United Nations focused on the implementation
of the 2005 World Summit Outcome. We have strongly supported the request by the
Secretary-General for additional resources to implement the World Summit decisions.
This we did despite the obstacle we faced with the spending cap being imposed
on the Organization by the largest contributors, and the fact that the voice and
participation of developing countries in the United Nations was being challenged. Yet,
2006 will also be remembered as the year in which we developing countries successfully
withstood numerous attempts to divide us. Through our unity, we ensured that Member
States adopted decisions that guaranteed the smooth and effective functioning
of the United Nations and reflected the interests of developing countries. As
mandated by the Ministerial Meeting in Putrajaya, the Group of 77 and China ensured
that the spending cap was lifted by consensus in June 2006. The lifting of the
spending cap guaranteed the continued financial solvency of the United Nations
and enabled the Secretary-General to implement programmes and activities for the
remainder of 2006 and 2007. The Group of 77 and China also upheld the right
of every Member State to pronounce on administrative and budgetary matters, irrespective
of the size of their contributions, as enshrined in the Charter of the United
Nations by sponsoring a resolution that our partners did not support. Through
further dialogue and negotiation, we also managed to ensure that the General Assembly
adopted a second resolution on governance and oversight by consensus. On
Secretariat and Management Reforms, the Group of 77 and China ensured the adoption
of no fewer than five General Assembly resolutions addressing various issues including
the increase in the representation of developing countries in the Secretariat,
in particular at senior levels; the increase in access for vendors from developing
countries in the United Nations procurement market; and the improvement of accountability
by the Secretariat towards Member States in the use of resources and the implementation
of mandates. Our Group was instrumental in ensuring that the refurbishing
of the ageing and unsafe United Nations Headquarters in New York could proceed
without further delay. We further ensured that additional resources were provided
to the Development Account, which was one of the first reform measures introduced
by Secretary-General Kofi Annan in 1997, his first year in office. The Group furthermore
contributed towards ensuring the provision of adequate financing to the two International
Tribunals, several peacekeeping operations and twenty-seven special political
missions for 2006 and 2007. We supported the establishment of a peacebuilding
support office, the provision of resources required for the functioning of the
Human Rights Council, the adoption of new accounting standards for the United
Nations, improving the information and communication technology system of the
United Nations, strengthening the procurement function of the Secretariat, increasing
the level of the Working Capital Fund, and strengthening the oversight functions.
We also set a framework for the consideration in 2007 of measures to reform the
human resources management system and policies, oversight and accountability structures,
and the procurement system. For this reason, we welcome the steps taken
by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to enhance accountability and ensure that staff
acts in an ethical manner. By disclosing his own financial assets to the public,
the Secretary-General has already shown that he will be leading by example. Also,
the G77 and China has consistently called for greater transparency and dialogue
between Member States and the Secretariat. So, the willingness of the Secretary-General
to share his vision for the Organization with the G77 and China bodes well for
future reform efforts. We also made sure that the interests of developing
countries are reflected in the scale of assessment that will determine the apportionment
of the expenses of the United Nations from 1 January 2007 to 31 December 2009.
Throughout difficult negotiations on the scale of assessment the Group remained
united and at the General Assembly ended up adopting a scale of assessments that
maintains the adjustments for developing countries, thereby reflecting the fundamental
criterion of the "capacity to pay". The Group of 77 and China
also ensured that developing countries, facing large increases in their rates
of assessment of the scale, received relief through mitigation by the redistributing
of the points received from the Russian Federation. On behalf of our Group, I
wish to express our appreciation to the Russian Federation and some Members of
our Group for contributing to the mitigation for developing countries. Your
Excellencies, Our Group was also active away from the United Nations in
New York. On 3 September 2006, a meeting of the Ministers of Science and Technology
of the Member States of the Group of 77 was held in Angra dos Reis, Rio de Janeiro
(Brazil). On that occasion the Ministers successfully launched the G77 Consortium
on Science, Technology and Innovation for the South (COSTIS), to fulfill the mandate
given us by the Havana Programme of Action and the Doha Plan of Action, both which
called for the establishment of "a consortium on knowledge and technology
of the South." The consortium was launched following the decision adopted
by the Third World Network of Scientific Organizations (TWNSO) to transform itself
into the Consortium on Science, Technology and Innovation for the South. This
launching was made possible through the support and collaboration of the Trieste
System, especially TWAS as well as the Brazilian Academy of Sciences which hosted
the meeting. The first meeting of the Task Force on the Consortium will be held
in Rome on the 19 January 2007. I am also pleased to report that several
countries have responded to my appeal at the Pledging Conference last November
for the expansion of the resources for the Perez-Guerrero Trust Fund (PGTF). Last
month, a grant agreement of US$200,000 was signed with the International Fund
for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and we hope that other UN organizations will
make similar contributions. The role of the Special Unit for South-South
Cooperation has been critical in supporting the implementation of the outcomes
of the South Summits, especially in terms of South-South cooperation. Many initiatives
were undertaken including the 10th World Summit of Young Entrepreneurs, held in
Sao Paolo (Brazil) in March 2006, and the 2006 Global Assets and Technology Exchange
System (GATES) Summit and Expo held in Shangai (China) in May 2006. Other initiatives
have taken place such as the preparatory meeting of the Global South Development
Forum (GSDF) held in Shangai in October 2006; the brain-storming session on South-South
Cooperation on Biodiversity in Montreal, Canada; and the Forum on Creative Economy
for Development held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Your Excellencies, As
I conclude, allow me to quote from the book by Nobel Laureate for Economics, Professor
Joseph E. Stiglitz's titled "Globalization and its Discontents":
"The developed world needs to do its part to reform the international institutions
that govern globalization. We set up these institutions and we need to work to
fix them. If we are to address the legitimate concerns of those who have expressed
a discontent with globalization, if we are to make globalization work for the
billions of people for whom it has not, if we are to make globalization with a
human face succeed, then our voices must be raised. We cannot, we should not,
stand idly by." With these words, South Africa wishes to pay tribute
to the Member States of the Group of 77 and China whose solidarity and collective
spirit ensured that the Group was able to reach important outcomes that are good
for the United Nations while protecting the interests of developing countries.
We are truly humbled by your support and cooperation during the year in which
we served as Chair of the Group of 77 and China.
Furthermore, I wish to express
deep appreciation for the work done by the Secretariat of the Group of 77 and
China headed by the Executive Secretary, Mr. Mourad Ahmia. It is a small group
of professionals, yet they carry heavy responsibilities and work very hard. A
special "thank you" to Mr. Arturo Lozano, Mr. Vincent Wilkinson and
Mrs. Marcelle Alexandre for their tireless efforts, assistance and co-operation.
Also, our sincere thanks go to the Special Unit for South-South Cooperation
and to various UN Agencies, particularly UNCTAD, UNDP, UNIDO, FAO, and IFAD for
their valuable support to the Group.
Lastly, it is a great honour and pleasure
for me to hand the Chair's Gavel over to His Excellency Mr. Makhdum Khusro Bakhtyar,
Minister of State for Foreign Affairs of Pakistan. We wish Pakistan great success
in 2007 and assure you of our continuing support as you assume your responsibilities
to the Group. I thank you. Issued by Ronnie Mamoepa on 082 990 4853
Department of Foreign Affairs
Private Bag X152
Pretoria
0001 11
January 2007
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