STATEMENT ON BEHALF OF GROUP OF 77 AND CHINA BY AMBASSADOR FEDA ABDULHADI-NASSER, DEPUTY PERMANENT REPRESENTATIVE, MISSION OF THE STATE OF PALESTINE TO THE UN, AT THE UNITED NATIONS DAY FOR SOUTH-SOUTH COOPERATION (New York, 12 September 2019)

Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen,

1. It gives me great pleasure to address you today on behalf of the Group of 77 and China.

2. Allow me first to extend our thanks to the United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation for organizing this important event in coordination with the Government of Argentina and other partners to celebrate the United Nations Day for South-South Cooperation. This celebration gives us an annual opportunity to reflect on the increasing importance of South-South Cooperation and raise the awareness of the international community on its continued relevance. In 1978, on this same day, the international community adopted in Buenos Aires a major landmark agreement to make increasingly significant contributions to global development through sharing and exchange of resources, technology, experiences and knowledge. Since then, the implementation in Southern countries of a set of successful public policies and the determination to promote partnerships and reduce asymmetries by mutual learning and knowledge-exchange, have certainly contributed to self-reliance and sustainable development.

3. However, forty-one years later and despite the evolving progress, the international community faces new and emerging challenges that require strong commitments and collective efforts in a global strategy which seeks to accelerate sustainable development across the world.

4. The Group recognizes the BAPA+40 conference, and its final outcome document, as an opportunity to redouble our firm commitment to the mandate of the High-Level Committee on South-South Cooperation and to reiterate our support to the United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation, stressing that the Office provides important support to South-South cooperation in the UN system.

5. It was also an important occasion for the international community to review trends, assess progress, review lessons learned and identify opportunities and challenges with a view to effectively support South-South cooperation and promote South-South agenda, and aiming at stepping up South-South cooperation contribution to the ambitious goal of eradicating poverty in all its forms and dimensions, taking advantage of the significant achievements by developing countries.

Excellencies, ladies and Gentlemen,

6. The Group strongly believes that South-South cooperation offers opportunities, and supports our efforts to strengthen international cooperation to achieve the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development; the main multilateral consensus which reaffirms the global development commitment and calls for complementing national efforts to achieve the 17 Sustainable Development Goals.

7. It has been four years since the global community embarked on the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, highlighting the importance of advancing economic, social, and environmental developments in order to achieve Sustainable Development Goals.

8. In the 17 SDGs, the global community made a promise to end poverty and hunger, boost access to health, education and jobs, while protecting our planet from environmental degradation.

9. Four years into the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the world has witnessed progress in many goals and targets, reaffirming that national commitments and enhanced multilateralism have and will contribute to sustainable development with the aim of eradicating poverty in all its forms and dimensions, which is the overarching goal of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

10. The Group welcomes the role and contributions of South-South Cooperation to poverty eradication as it generates continued inclusive, sustained, and equitable economic growth necessary in achieving the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

11. The Group recognizes the multidimensional nature of poverty and the social, economic and environmental dimensions of domestic output and structural gaps at all levels, and further recognizes the need for international development cooperation to include a multidimensional perspective that transcends the use of per capita income as the sole indicator to measure development, in order to support all developing countries to achieve sustainable development.

Excellencies,

12. While being complement to but not substituting North-South cooperation, South-South Cooperation leads to more diverse opportunities for development, assistance and cooperation while viable opportunities for developing countries in their individual and collective pursuit of sustainable development.

13. South-South Cooperation and its agenda must be set by countries of the South and should continue to be guided by the principles of respect for national sovereignty, national ownership and independence, equality, non-conditionality, non-interference in domestic affairs and mutual benefit.

14. South-South cooperation and its spread shall not reduce the commitment of developed countries to reach 0,7% of their GNIs, as their official developing assistance to developing countries.

15. The establishment of UN Office on South-South Cooperation represents an important, incremental step for supporting South-South Cooperation within the United Nations Development System. The office has done a highly commendable work, especially in networking and making known various forms and instances of South-South Cooperation, within the UN and the UN system, as well as in and among the developing countries. However, a major strategic effort and thinking is called for on how to strengthen the support by the UN and by the international community for this form of development cooperation.

16. In this context, we call upon the United Nations development system to continue enhancing its support to South-South and triangular cooperation, at the request and with the ownership and leadership of the developing countries.

17. Also, we would like to highlight the role of the High Level Committee on South-South Cooperation. Its mandate was not only reaffirmed but also enhanced by commanding it with the responsibility of engaging Member States in consultation to foster on peer-learning and knowledge-sharing and, ultimately, present recommendations to the General Assembly related to the implementation of final outcome document of BAPA+40.

18. In closing, the international community must foster and strengthen initiatives, commitments, ambitions, and objectives generated during BAPA+40 while contributing to the role played by South-South Cooperation in supporting all developing countries to achieve sustainable development, while acknowledging the serious and continuous, as well as the new and emerging challenges, that developing countries face.

19. The G77 and China fervently hopes that BAPA+40 will constitute itself in a multilateral consensus that will allow to boost the volume, reach and quality of our South-South and Triangular cooperation initiative and guide our joint work for the next years.

I thank you.