Chairperson,
Excellencies,
Distinguished delegates

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

Allow me to congratulate you, Chair, and other bureau members on your election to the Bureau of the Second Committee at its 79th Session. The Group commends H.E. Carlos Daniel Amorín Tenconi, the previous Chair, as well as other members of the Second Committee Bureau for their hard work at the last session.

Excellencies,

We meet at the time when the world continues to witness rising levels of uncertainty, which is negatively affecting developing countries. These negative consequences have exacerbated multiple challenges that developing countries face and continue to threaten the international community's collective commitment to leave no one or no country behind.

Excellencies,

It is in this context that we support the theme of the Second Committee entitled "Fostering resilience and growth in an uncertain world". As developing countries, we remain deeply concerned that the commitments agreed through intergovernmental processes at the United Nations to support our countries remain unimplemented. This has resulted into our countries lagging behind in the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its Sustainable Development Goals as well as addressing climate change, biodiversity loss and disasters. In this regard, we call on the international community, in particular developed countries to fully respect and fulfil the commitments agreed upon to support developing countries by taking concrete actions to provide and mobilize adequate means of implementation.

Excellencies,

We emphasize that, to build resilience and achieve growth in an uncertain world, urgent actions should be taken as follows:

1. Eradicate poverty in all its forms and dimensions, including extreme poverty, which remains the greatest global challenge and the overarching objective of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and an indispensable requirement for sustainable development;

2. Urgently address the challenges and needs faced by developing countries, especially countries in special situations, in particular, African countries, least developed countries, landlocked developing countries and small island developing States, as well as specific challenges faced by many middle-income countries, conflict and post-conflict countries and countries and peoples living under foreign occupation;

3. Reaffirm, in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations, the need to respect the territorial integrity and political independence of States;

4. Urgent and comprehensive reform of the international financial architecture to close the SDG financing gap, including international financial institutions and multilateral development banks governance reform, especially of IMF and the World Bank, to broaden and strengthen the voice, and participation and representation of developing countries in international economic decision making, norm setting and global economic governance;

5. Reaffirm all the principles of the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development, including, inter alia, the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities, as set out in principle 7 thereof;

6. Refrain from promulgating and applying any unilateral economic, financial or trade measures not in accordance with international law and the Charter of the United Nations that impede the full achievement of economic and social development, particularly in developing countries.

Excellencies,

The debt challenges of developing countries remain elevated with the external debt reaching a record level of USD 11.4 trillion in 2022. It is only be addressing this level of indebtedness that developing countries will have the required fiscal space to take actions aimed at building resilience and supporting inclusive economic growth. We therefore reiterate our call for urgent review of the sovereign debt architecture, with a view to making concrete recommendations for reform at the Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development. We also call for the elimination of the surcharge policy by the IMF and generation of new special drawing rights, as well as rechannelling the unutilized special drawing rights.

Excellencies,

We emphasize the critical role that international trade plays in achieving growth and building resilience, particularly in developing countries. It is important to fully facilitate developing countries to integrate their economies into the multilateral trading system. We are committed to the universal, rules-based, open, transparent, predictable, inclusive, non-discriminatory and equitable multilateral trading system with the WTO at its core. We are deeply concerned at the emerging green protectionism, which could reverse decades of development gains made by developing countries.

We reaffirm that the WTO dispute settlement system is a cornerstone of the Multilateral Trading System and promotes predictability in international trade. We remain concerned on the impasse in the selection process of the new appellate Body Members, which has severely undermined the dispute settlement system. In this regard, we urge all Members to engage constructively in the discussions towards the conclusion of the necessary reform of the WTO to improve all its functions, preserving the centrality, core values and fundamental principles of the WTO, and restore the Appellate body in order to ensure a fully and well-functioning dispute settlement system accessible to all Members by 2024.

Excellencies,

Climate change remains a threat to achieving growth and building resilience. The widespread and unprecedented impacts of climate change disproportionately burden developing countries thus undermining their efforts to achieve their national development priorities. We therefore reiterate our call to developed countries to significantly increase the provision and mobilization of climate finance, particularly for adaptation and resilience as well as loss and damage, for a progression beyond previous efforts.

We stress that climate finance must not be double counted as official development assistance and must therefore be considered as new and additional to such assistance. We further stress the importance of concluding at COP29 the negotiations to agree on an ambitious, transparent and fit-for-purpose new collective quantified goal on climate finance from a floor of USD $100 billion per year, based on Article 9 of the Paris Agreement and the principles and provisions of the Convention, aiming to scale up the provision and mobilization of public resources in a grant-base or concessional manner to developing countries in mitigation, adaptation and loss and damage, at minimum.

Excellencies,

Biodiversity loss and disasters equally remain a threat to the achieving growth and building resilience. We call for adequate and sufficient means of implementation for developing countries to ensure the full implementation of the Convention to halt biodiversity loss, including by providing and mobilizing new, additional and predictable financial resources, technological and capacity building, to support the effective implementation of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework. In addition, we call on the developed countries to provide and mobilize the means of implementation to support developing countries to adequately address their disaster risk reduction needs and priorities.

Excellencies,

We reiterate that international development cooperation, especially North-South cooperation, remains a fundamental catalyst to sustainable development. As North-South cooperation is the main channel of development financing, the international community must uphold the principle of "common but differentiated responsibilities" (CBDR) and reinvigorate North-South cooperation to continue to play its key role. We reaffirm that South-South cooperation is an important element of international cooperation for development, and is not a substitute for, but rather a complement to, North-South cooperation.

Excellencies,

We remain committed to strengthening the United Nation system to deliver results on the ground in programmatic countries that are in line with their national development priorities and needs. We stress that 2024 Quadrennial Comprehensive Policy Review QCPR process should ensure that the UN development system is provided with the appropriate policy guidance needed to strengthen its support to accelerate actions to achieve the SDGs in the remaining six years.

We also stress that an efficient and well-funded United Nations Development System is key in supporting the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the achievement of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals, particularly in developing countries, emphasizing that the United Nations Development System support to developing countries should be in accordance with their national development needs and priorities.

Chair,

In conclusion, the Group looks forward to engage constructively in the work of Second Committee, including the successful conclusion of negotiations of the draft resolutions. You can count on the Group's full support throughout the Second Committee work.

I thank you.