<p>Thank you, Co-Chairs.</p>

<p>The G77 and China were pleased to see the informal consultations on the section on Science, Technology and Innovation and Capacity-Building yield similar views across many delegations and that there was potential for common landing zones for constructive and productive outcomes from this chapter. </p>

<p>For the Group, STI is an accelerant for achieving sustainable development, enabling us to promote greater inclusivity, equity and facilitate the easier exchange of innovation and best practices. However, at the same time unfettered and concentrated technological and digital advances or transitions and the emergence of new technologies pose the risk of leaving some countries and people behind, if not properly undergirded by robust international cooperation, governance and support for developing countries, particularly in enhancing investment in and fostering institutional capacity building and the development of local ecosystems, including technology transfer in STI in developing countries. </p>

<p>Specifically, with regard to Action 54(c), the Group believes that the ECOSOC FFD Forum can be a platform to support the intersectionality between technology, science, digital technologies, including new and emerging ones such as artificial intelligence, fintech and sustainable development, by profiling positive and successful test cases in countries, between countries, at the regional and international levels, and by stakeholders to facilitate better knowledge exchange. This includes identifying context-specific implementation challenges for developing countries, and the requisite international support they require - whether it be in access to technology, targeted sectoral investments, or more fundamentally in policy and infrastructure design. This must go hand-in-hand with using the FFD Forum as well as the SDG Investment Fair as opportunities to crowd in investment and financing for new projects and those already underway in developing countries to augment their STI capacities, and enable them to scale. These should not be limited to just rhetorically extolling the benefits for STI, but yield real tangible cooperation, including on open science and innovation, digital infrastructure connectivity, digital public goods, and digital public infrastructure, both in terms of international partnerships and investment arrangements for developing countries to fully leverage the opportunities STI can provide. </p>

<p>On new and emerging digital technologies, such as AI, the Group notes that developing countries are sometimes excluded from international dialogues on governance and norm-setting on these matters, and it is imperative that the perspectives and needs of developing countries and their contributions are taken into consideration and that adequate financing and enabling environments at all levels are ensured for developing countries to build AI capacities and adopt artificial intelligence, given that these new technologies could potentially stall developmental gains and worsen the digital divide. As such, we seek, through this text, to strengthen the voice and representation and contributions of developing countries in the AI discourse, across various sectors, including but not limited their application in banking, financial services and enterprise, all of which have real impacts on the development of developing countries. We also encourage adoption and scaling up of Digital Public Infrastructure which has the potential to strengthen financial inclusion, narrow the digital gap and promote economic growth.</p>

<p>Co-Chairs, </p>

<p>The Group is of the view that this section presents a real opportunity for us to ensure the FFD process remains forward-looking and anticipatory, and provides concrete solutions that can be attractive to both the public and private sector, and a fulcrum for international cooperation. It is thus important that we show flexibility and understanding in our negotiations to ensure strong agreement on these issues. </p>

<p>Thank you.</p>