Concluding remarks by Mr. Abdellah Benmellouk, Counsellor, Permanent Mission of the Kingdom of Morocco to the United Nations, on behalf on G-77 and China, on the draft resolution on the Integrated and Coordinated Follow Up to and Implementation of the Outcomes of the major United Nations summits and conferences (New York, 16 June 2003)

Mr. President,

I recall when we began this process, the observers said that we would never finish this process within the imparted timeline and that we would perhaps spend a year or two on it, which was the case of the resolution 50/227 adopted in 1995. But due to your commitment, Mr President, the commitment of the Co-chairmen, the Ambassadors of Belgium and Ghana and due to the determination of all the Member States we were able to finalize our work within the imparted schedule. I would this like to convey my gratitude to you on behalf of my Group, the Group of 77 and China. I would also like to thank the Co- Chairmen, the Secretariat as well as the Facilitator.

I believe that after five and a half months of consultation, we were able to achieve a balanced result, which takes into account all the considerations and all the concerns. Everyone is satisfied with this compromise and within my Group this is especially true. I think we were all able to focus our work on the essence of it and not get sidelined in unnecessary details.

The holding of a summit on development in 2005 is great achievement of this ad Hoc working group. This summit will be an opportunity for Member States and the international community as a whole to take stock of progress made in the implementation of all the commitments, taken under various conferences and summit. It will also be an opportunity to take the correctives and the necessary measures to advance the process of implementation.

The strengthening of the Economic and Social Council and the General Assembly as far as integrated follow up is concerned is also an important and positive step. The same is true of their role in the consideration of progress achieved in the implementation of the outcomes of various conferences and summits.

The involvement of UNCTAD in New York's processes is an important step towards the integrated approach of the implementation and follow up as well as the monitoring of progress achieved in this regard. We welcome the contribution and participation of UNCTAD Trade and Development Board in the integrated and coordinated implementation of and follow up to major conferences and summits within the context of ECOSOC. We welcome especially the participation of TDB representative in the ECOSOC high level meeting with the BWIs and the WTO. That is a great achievement of this as Ad hoc working group. We look forward to the participation of TDB in this important meeting.

Hence, the improvement of the role of the United Nations system in implementation and follow up, the reform of the methods of work of all functional commissions and follow up mechanisms with a view to focusing on the review of implementation, the compromise reached on indicators as a tool for monitoring and assessing the progress made in implementation, are all achievements which we welcome and which allow us to progress in the implementation process and thus to keep the attention of the international community on the development agenda. This is a result we welcome as long as it is in fact implemented and kept to and here we wish to appeal to the international community, to all the Member States and especially to our developed partners, to implement and respect the commitments contained and achieved at the various conferences and summits.

Finally, I would like here on behalf of my Group to convey our gratitude to all our partners who participated so actively in the consultations and the negotiations pertaining to this draft resolution. I would also to thank my Group, all the members of it, who assisted me during the whole process, since the 27th January of this year. Thus, Mr. President, once again we would like to convey our gratitude to you. The same goes to the Co- Chairmen, the Facilitator and the Secretariat and, of course, we are ready to adopt the text as it stands. We would wish to have the text at our disposal in the various working languages. However, we are ready to adopt the English version. But we do wish to make sure that when the General Assembly adopts this text, it is available in all languages.

I thank you Mr. President.