Madam Chair,

1. I have the honor to deliver this statement on behalf of the Group of 77 and China on Agenda Item 155: Administrative and Budgetary Aspects of financing of the UN Peacekeeping Operations. Budget performance of the United Nations Logistics Base at Brindisi, Italy and the Regional Service Centre in Entebbe, Uganda for the period from 1 July 2023 to 30 June 2024 and the proposed budget for 1 July 2025 to 30 June 2026.

2. At the outset, the Group of 77 and China thanks Mr. Chandru Ramanathan, Assistant Secretary-General, and Controller, and Ms. Julian Gasper Ruas, Chair of the Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions for introducing their respective reports.

With respect to the Regional Service Centre in Entebbe (RSCE)

3. The Group wishes to recall that the General Assembly in its resolution 64/269 established the Regional Service Center in Entebbe as the first Shared Service Center for Missions in the region under the Global Field Support Strategy and that the General Assembly in its resolution 69/307, gave the Center operational and managerial independence.

4. The Group acknowledges the important work of the Center in providing services to 16 clients including six (6) Peacekeeping Missions and support offices and nine (9) Special Political Missions, as well as other Missions in the region, including residual liquidation functions to the closing and closed peacekeeping Missions.

5. The Group notes that the Center provides support to over 46 percent of the United Nations Secretariat Staff worldwide and serves over 16,449 personnel, including international and national staff as well as uniformed personnel. The workload, complexity and volume of transactions carried out by the Centre have greatly increased and therefore it is important that adequate financial and human resources are provided to the Centre to enable it to fulfil its mandate.

Madam Chair,

6. The Group notes with appreciation the continued refinement of the scalability model for the RSCE and acknowledges that the scalability model informs the administrative and budgetary requirements of the RSCE. With this in mind, it is important that a period of stabilization of the Centre's scalability is allowed to enable for the optimum realization of efficiencies and that the further review of this scalability will not impact its mandate delivery and resource requirements.

7. The Group notes that, with respect to the culture of efficiency, the RSCE has achieved over $200 million in savings and cost avoidance for the Organization, including $166 million from its establishment, $45.8 million in cost avoidance at client missions, and $17.3 million from prompt payment discounts, with additional savings from nationalization efforts.

Madam Chair,

8. With respect to the staff of the Centre, the Group recalls that the General Assembly requested the Secretary-General to ensure that national staff of the Centre are granted continuing contracts in line with the relevant provisions of General Assembly resolutions, and therefore urges the Secretary-General to expedite the issuance of continuing contracts for national staff that meet the eligibility requirements, in compliance with the Staff Regulations and Rules of the United Nations.

9. With respect to the evolving landscape of peacekeeping operations and the role of RSCE within the context of the global support architecture, the Group wishes to highlight the importance of RSCE and the need to leverage the expertise that the Centre in Entebbe has acquired throughout its years of functioning and looks forward to the review that is currently underway with regard to expanding transactional services and all capabilities of the RSCE to other UN entities and the Secretariat and the African Union on a cost recovery basis.

Madam Chair,

Turning to the United Nations Logistics Base (UNLB)

10. The Group recalls that the United Nations Logistics Base at Brindisi, Italy, has been operational since 1994 and functioning as a unified entity comprising the Global Service Centre at Brindisi and the United Nations Information and Communications Technology Facility in Valencia, both of which were established to provide global geospatial, information and telecommunications technologies, logistics and supply chain operational management, as well as enabling support services throughout the life cycle of field missions, from start-up planning and preparation to liquidation.

11. The Group will examine the total resource requirements for the period 2025/2026 during the informal consultations.

12. The Group notes that the expected income from cost recovery is USD 16.9 million and will be interested in receiving more detailed, comprehensive and transparent information on the services provided to various entities, the resources required to provide those services, the related posts and positions, the different financing and the related recording of the cost-recovery arrangements and expenditure. We will be interested as well in obtaining information about the criteria that are followed at the time of recruiting the posts that are funded through cost-recovery resources.

Madam Chair,

13. The Group also recalls that the General Assembly has emphasized further refinement of the scalability model for the UNLB and looks forward to receiving the results of the development of the methodology for identifying scalable and non-scalable elements of the scalability model for UNLB.

14. Transparency is a cornerstone of the United Nation procurement system. In this regard, the Group agrees with the Advisory Committee that the concept of sustainable procurement has not been approved by the General Assembly, and emphasizes the need for consistent application of the procurement principles in accordance with the United Nations financial regulations and rules.

15. The Group has also noted the data on gender parity and geographical representation and encourages further efforts to achieve equitable representation and gender balance in staffing, including at senior levels.

16. In conclusion, Madam Chair, I assure you of our commitment to engage constructively on this important agenda item to ensure a timely conclusion.

I thank you.