STATEMENT ON BEHALF OF THE GROUP OF 77 AND CHINA BY H.E. MR. SACHA LLORENTY, AMBASSADOR, PERMANENT REPRESENTATIVE OF THE PLURINATIONAL STATE OF BOLIVIA TO THE UNITED NATIONS, CHAIR OF THE GROUP OF 77, AT THE CLOSING SESSION OF THE OPEN WORKING GROUP ON SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS (New York, 19 July 2014)

The Group of 77 + China would like to thank: the Co-Chairs Mr. Macharia Kamau and Mr. Csaba Körösi for their efforts in leading the Group of Work for more than a year of meetings; the United Nations Secretariat; the Member and Observer States of this Group as well as the Major Groups, including civil society organizations which have been supporting and contributing with ideas, backup information and proposals for the construction of the sustainable development goals.

Regarding sustainable development, we emphasize that each country has the sovereign right to decide its own development priorities and strategies and consider that there is no "one size fits all" approach. We stress the need for international rules to allow policy space and policy flexibility for developing countries, as they are directly related to the development strategies of national Governments. We further emphasize the need for policy space to enable our countries to formulate development strategies expressing national interests and differing needs which are not always taken into account by international economic policymaking in the process of integration with the global economy.

We recall and reaffirm that poverty eradication is the greatest global challenge facing the world today and an indispensable requirement for sustainable development.

We reiterate that eradicating poverty, changing unsustainable patterns of consumption and production, promoting sustainable patterns of consumption and production, and protecting and managing the natural resource base for economic and social development are the overarching objectives of and essential requirements for sustainable development. We also reaffirm the need to achieve sustainable development by promoting sustained, inclusive and equitable economic growth, creating greater opportunities for all, reducing inequalities, raising basic standards of living, fostering equitable social development and inclusion, and promoting integrated and sustainable management of natural resources and ecosystems that supports, inter alia, economic, social and human development while facilitating ecosystem conservation, regeneration and restoration and resilience in the face of new and emerging challenges.

For that purpose, we stress that progress in realizing the Millennium Development Goals, the sustainable development goals and the post-2015 development agenda will depend on progress in creating a development oriented international environment that enables development, facilitating the necessary means of implementation to developing countries, particularly in the areas of finance, trade, technology and capacity-building, to developing countries.

For the Group of 77 and China, the definition of the means of implementation for each and every sustainable development goal, as well as the strengthening of the global partnership for development, are essential requirements and without them, the entire SDG´s agenda may become empty and with no possibilities for its implementation.

Unfortunately, this clear and direct request of the largest Group of this organization, which represents all developing countries, hasn´t been properly accommodated in the last version of the proposal of SDGs and neither was included a clear reference to the follow-up of the Monterrey and Doha´s Conferences on Financing for Development, which should be the fundamental basis for the efforts on this subject and for the financing strategy for development.

This, is the result of the lack of political will of developed countries but also of some procedural issues within the framework of this Working Group, which dedicated most of its sessions to thematic debates leaving only to the last three sessions during the last month and a half, to the revision of the zero draft document with proposals of goals and targets.

This situation has created serious difficulties for developing countries in terms of effectively conducting the necessary internal consultations to its competent institutions, especially concerning the large number of goals included in the first version of the zero draft document and the fact that the document is in permanent evolution.

The Group of 77 +China reminds that the sustainable development goals should be coherent with and integrated into the United Nations development agenda beyond 2015, thus contributing to the achievement of sustainable development and serving as a driver for implementation and mainstreaming of sustainable development in the United Nations system as a whole.

For that purpose, the Group of 77 +China would like to emphasize the mandate of Resolution 68/6 of the General Assembly where it was decided that at the beginning of the sixty-ninth session of the General Assembly, a process of intergovernmental negotiations will be launched to lead to the adoption of the post-2015 development agenda.

The Group regrets that the issue of "ending all forms of foreign occupation and colonial domination" is not included in target 16.3 under "Peaceful societies". In the same context we regret that our request the reduction of inequalities "including and all kinds of unilateral economic measures against developing countries" has not been taken into account under goal 10.

In that sense, the report to be presented by the group of work of SDGs should be assumed only as one more of the contributions to the deliberations and the final phase of the intergovernmental work, which will end in a summit at the level of Heads of State and Government in September 2015 for the adoption of the post-2015 development agenda.

Finally, we underscore the need for a just, transparent and inclusive intergovernmental negotiation process that should be focused on its modalities and substantive aspects to arrive at a negotiated and agreed outcome document, taking fully into account the outcomes of the various follow-up processes mandated at the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, as well as of the major summits and conferences related to the social, economic and environmental fields.