Pakistan Expects UN to make affirmative interventions to eradicate poverty, hunger and disease

Geneva, 25 April 2006: Pakistan has expressed the hope that the ongoing UN reform process will enable the Organization to make affirmative interventions in parts of the world which continue to suffer from abject poverty, hunger and disease. Ambassador Masood Khan, Pakistan’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations in Geneva and Chairman of the Group of 77 and China expressed this hope on behalf of 133 developing countries in a meeting with UN Deputy Secretary General, Mr. Mark Malloch Brown. Ambassador Khan said that the Group of 77 and China were of the view that the reform should chart the way forward for an efficient and credible UN system equipped to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and other internationally agreed development objectives.

The Permanent Representative highlighted the role and importance of United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) as the focal point within the UN system on an integrated treatment of trade and development and related areas of investment, finance and technology. He added that UNCTAD had served as the world’s development conscience for more than four decades and the ongoing UN reform process should not dilute the mandate of UNCTAD or supplant or subsume it. Ambassador Khan said that development was of fundamental importance to the G-77 and the Group was concerned over the slow progress on the follow up of decisions taken and commitments made at 2005 World Summit and earlier summits and conferences on social and development issues in the UN system. He called a robust implementation of agreed development commitments with measurable results.

Later, UN Deputy Secretary General briefed that Group of 77 on the latest developments in New York on the UN reform process. He said that the panel on system wide coherence co-chaired by the Prime Ministers of Pakistan, Norway and Mozambique had met twice in New York and Madrid. He hoped that the panel will be able to present a concrete Plan of Action for making the UN system more effective, efficient, coherent and development oriented in a demand driven manner. Mr. Malloch Brown said that increase in the UN membership from 45 to 191 countries over the last six decades called for a management reform and review of mandates. He assured the Group of 77 that UNCTAD was a critical part of the UN development policy architecture and the reform process was aimed at strengthening its mandate in a balanced manner to serve the interest of developing countries.