Mr. President,
Madam Administrator,
Distinguished delegates and members of the Executive Board,

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

2. At the outset, I would like to thank the UNDP Administrator, Ms. Helen Clark, for her presentation on the achievements of UNDP in 2009 and the organization's financial, budgetary and administrative matters.

3. The Group of 77 and China hopes to continue the spirit of constructive engagement with the organization, the Board and with all our development partners as a means of improving coordination and cooperation for greater development effectiveness.

4. The Group reiterates the importance it accords to the core development mandate of the UNDP in supporting national efforts at poverty eradication. It's a priority for the Group that the UNDP remains focused on its core development mandate, in particular support to capacity-building and capacity-development efforts of programme countries to achieve internationally agreed development goals, including the MDGs. We firmly believe that the strategic vision and operations of the organization must be in line with the priorities of developing countries and core development mandate of the UNDP.

Mr. President,

5. The UNDP operate in a complex and diverse international environment with multiple and multi-faceted challenges to development at all levels. The organization continues to face increasing demands for development assistance and effectiveness in carrying out its mandate. In this regard, the Group notes with great concern on the declining trend in the funding. As a matter of fact, contributions to regular ("core") resources reached $1 billion in 2009 in nominal terms, a decrease of 9 per cent from the level of $1.1 billion achieved in 2008 and approximately 20 per cent below the 2009 annual target for regular resources set out in the UNDP strategic plan, 2008-2011, and the current projections for 2010 suggest a continued downward. We therefore urge donor countries to fulfill their commitments to support this organization and not to use the financial crisis as a pretext to avoid their commitments. The Group of 77 and China would also like to reaffirm the position that funding for development activities should not be tied to any conditionalities, or earmarked for certain focus areas. Instead, it should be allocated according to the respective national priorities and plans of programme countries.

6. The Group would like to stress that resources should not be directed from the programme budget to meet the management nor coherence costs. Rather, we believe, UNDP cost cutting exercises should be aimed at making more financial resources available to the programme budget.

Mr. President,

7. In September this year, the General Assembly will hold a High-level Meeting in New York. In this regard, the Group of 77 and China takes this opportunity to reiterate the importance of achieving the MDGs on time. We must bear in mind that achieving MDGs require a strong commitment of all of us. Despite most of the MDGs, including Goal 8 on Global Partnership for Development, have a 2015 achievement target date, unfortunately we are not on track and might be falling even further behind to meet most of the MDG targets. The main shortcoming is in the implementation of our commitments, and the main challenge to developing countries in ensuring full implementation of the commitments on the ground is the lack of financing and a more supportive international environment, demonstrating a failure in MDG 8.

Mr. President,

8. The Group of 77 and China wishes to stress the importance of the role of the UNDP and the Special Unit for South-South Cooperation within the context of the implementation of UNDP's Strategic Plan 2008-2011, extended to 2013, and commends their continued efforts to facilitate and support developmentally-focused South-South cooperation during the past year. The Group of 77 and China would also like to reiterate its position that South-South cooperation is a complement to, rather than substitute for, North-South development cooperation. South-South cooperation is a collective endeavor of developing countries based on premises, conditions and objectives that are specific to the historic and political context of developing countries and to their needs and expectations and as such South-South cooperation deserves its own separate and independent promotion as reaffirmed in the Nairobi outcome document and the Development Platform for the South of the G-77. In this context, the G-77 and China would like to recall the request made in numerous General Assembly resolutions to further strengthen the Special Unit for South-South Cooperation, hosted by UNDP, as a separate entity and UN system-wide coordinator for South-South and triangular development cooperation, so as to enable it to carry out its full responsibilities assigned by the General Assembly.

9. The G-77 and China would like to urge the UN development system, including UNDP, for the swift and effective implementation of the Nairobi outcome document of the UN High-level Conference on South-South Cooperation held in Nairobi, Kenya from 1 to 3 December 2009. This outcome document specially requested United Nations organizations, funds and programmes and specialized agencies, as well as regional commissions, with the support of the Special Unit for South-South Cooperation, to help developing countries establish or strengthen existing South-South centres of excellence, within their respective areas of competence, and enhance closer cooperation among such centres of excellence, especially at the regional and interregional levels, with a view to improving South-South knowledge-sharing, networking, mutual capacity-building, information and best practices exchanges, policy analysis and coordinated action among developing countries on major issues of common concern. In this connection, we take note the commitment made by the Administrator at the recent briefing meeting with the G-77 and China to place its support for South-South cooperation at the very centre of UNDP's mission by leveraging its global, regional and country programmes to promote and scale up the impact of evidence-based Southern MDG solutions. In this context, we would like to encourage other UN institutions to undertake similar steps to further the implementation of the Nairobi outcome document.

I thank you.