STATEMENT ON BEHALF OF THE GROUP OF 77 AND CHINA BY VALERIA D. VILASECA CH., MINISTER COUNSELLOR OF THE PERMANENT MISSION OF THE PLURINATIONAL STATE OF BOLIVIA TO THE UNITED NATIONS, ON IMPLEMENTATION OF THE OUTCOME OF THE UNITED NATIONS CONFERENCE ON HUMAN SETTLEMENTS (HABITAT II) AND STRENGTHENING OF THE UNITED NATIONS HUMAN SETTLEMENTS PROGRAMME (UN-HABITAT)) UNDER AGENDA ITEM 20: SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT, AT THE SECOND COMMITTEE OF THE 69TH SESSION OF THE UNITED NATIONS GENERAL ASSEMBLY (NEW YORK, OCTOBER 14 2014) (New York, 14 October 2014)

Mr Chair,

1. I have the honor to deliver this statement on behalf of the Group of 77 and China.

2. The Group of 77 and China would like to thank the Secretariat for all the reports under this agenda item focusing on the implementation of the outcome of the United Nations Conference on Human Settlements and also to encourage the strengthening of the UN-Habitat.

Mr Chair,

3. The Group would like to express its position once again and insist that sustainable cities and human settlement will be a major development challenge over the next several decades.

4. We recall that an important demographic revolution is moving hunger and poverty problems in developing countries from rural to urban areas. The process of urbanization remains rapid especially in Africa, Asia, as well as in Latin America and the Caribbean in which more than four fifths of the population is currently living in cities. Humanity is now half urban, with projections that some 70 per cent of the world's population will live in cities by 2050, with rural-urban drift occurring largely in developing countries, in that road its important promote the resilience of the cities against the effects of the climate change.

5. We recall the Rio+20 Conference, in which our world leaders recognized the importance of sustainable cities and sustainable urbanization. They reaffirmed that cities, if well planned and developed, can promote economically, socially and environmentally sustainable societies.

Mr. Chair,

6. The grim reality of approximately one billion people living in urban slums highlights the gravity of the challenges. Poor people living in slum houses in unhealthy environments, which co-exist with modern high-rise buildings in many developing countries, is a stark contrast that depicts poverty and inequality, these two important issues reflected under the proposed Sustainable Development Goal 11 and its 7 targets, are part of the OWG on SDGs outcome and need to be the main basis of the negotiations for the post-2015 development agenda as the Resolution A/RES/68/309 mandates.

7. We would like to recall that Sustainable urban development and human settlement require transformative policies at multiple levels of governance. It requires a multi-sectorial, multi-stakeholder approach that engages all relevant stakeholders in a transparent and inclusive manner. In this regard, we call for new modalities of interaction between nations at the international level, as well as between central and local governments at the national level, in order to fulfill their respective roles as governmental stakeholders in global efforts on sustainability.

8. Other non-state actors also play important complementary roles. At the local level, city planners should tackle urban development challenges through inclusive policies that favour people-centred objectives and participatory decision-making that include the disadvantaged and vulnerable groups of society.

9. The most critical constraint, therefore, is the persistent issue of financing. In many developing countries the capacity of the Government is constrained by the low level of revenues. In this regard, we stress one more time the need for the developed countries to fulfill their commitments to support developing countries efforts through the provision of resources, capacity-building, technology transfer and to carry on with the means of implementation and go further those proposed under Sustainable Development Goal 11, with the objective to create an international enabling environment.

10. The group believes appropriate to reiterate its commitment to the efforts of individual countries and the management of UN-Habitat that are working hard to accomplish the agreements and challenges established at Habitat II.

Mr. Chair,

11. We are in a very important phase heading to the road to Habitat III, so our efforts need to be enhanced; it is imperative that we can progressively realize that the challenge of making our cities safer, innovative, friendly, sustainable and productive is becoming real. In this context, we believe that the right track is the that international community works together, producing coordinated learning opportunities and fuelling the possibility of generating more democratic, equitable, inclusive processes with cities and socially integrated.

12. We would like to take this opportunity to reiterate the support of the Group of 77 and China to Ecuador's offer to host the Habitat III Conference.

13. Lastly, and taking into account all these elements the group will submit the HABITAT Resolution in the upcoming days, in that sense Mr. Chair you can rest in our constructively engagement.

I Thank you.