Vienna Chapter
Madame Chair,
On behalf of the G77 and China, I am pleased to express, our sincere
congratulations on your to the Chair of the 17th session of the PBC. At
the same time, I would like also to thank your predecessor, Mr. Mowoe, for
the excellent manner in which he chaired the work of the last PBC.
The Group commends the Secretariat for the preparation of the
documents and expresses its appreciation to the Director-General, Mr.
Carlos Magariños, for his introductory statement and his wise
leadership.
The Group of 77 and China has taken note of document PBC.17/2 and
while being aware of the limited resources of UNIDO, has found that more
emphasis has been given to Global Forum Activities, which might affect
UNIDO's Technical Cooperation activities.
The mandate of Global Forum Activities was given to enable UNIDO to
keep track of the global trends in the development of new expertise and
innovative technologies. The ultimate aim of such activities is to channel
the knowledge of such new technological developments for improving and
strengthening the technical cooperation programmes. The Global Forum
Activities, therefore, are not supposed to be promoted merely as an
academic or intellectual exercise. The central focus of the Organisation
has to be on the technical cooperation programme which is its primary
mandate while Global Forum Activities should be supplementary so that
additional funds from these activities may be reallocated to the areas of
higher priority.
Given the current resource constraint facing the Organization, an
increase in the Global Forum Activities programme must be carefully
studied and reviewed. The Group appreciates if the Secretariat could
provide comprehensive information on the impact which the Global Forum
activities have on the Technical Cooperation programmes, and also likes to
know the exact figures of the cost incurred by Global Forum activities
during year 2000.
The Group wishes to emphasize its view, while taking cognisance of
the relevant articles of its constitution, UNIDO should strive to apply
the principle of equitable geographical distribution in personnel policy,
particularly at the professional level. It also strongly support the issue
of gender balance in all levels of the Secretariat, especially at the
Directors level in conformity with the applicable policy of all other UN
organizations.
With respect to Agenda Item 5, the Group notes that despite consistent
efforts to exert timely payments, the collection rate of assessed
contributions has improved only slightly from 82.9 percent in 1998 and
1999 to 84.0 percent in 2000. In addition the Group finds that 62 Member
States (at 27 April 2001) including 5 Industrial Development Board and 3
Programme and Budget members have lost their voting rights.
The Group wishes to register its appreciation to those Member States
that have already made full payment of their 2000 assessed contribution.
We also wish to reiterate our call to those Member States that have yet to
fulfill their commitment to pay their assessed contributions in full
without delay. In addition, the Group wishes to call upon the Director
General to continue his efforts to collect all outstanding contributions
from current and past members.
In the programme framework for the 2002-2003 Programme and Budget, we
observed that emphasis was made on a new programmatic approach and service
delivery mechanisms.
We also note that the Organization intends to focus its services
delivery in two main areas of poverty eradication and improvement of the
environment. These are commendable goals, but the Group wishes to be
informed on the manner the Organization intends to achieve these goals.
The Group takes note that the integrated programme approach should
remain as the mechanism for the delivery of technical cooperation by UNIDO
in the next biennium. However, the Group would like to underscore the
importance of these programmes and any reduction of the service modules
should not affect the implementation of the approved integrated
programmes.
The Group supports a reduction of the budget for this major programme,
reflecting the shorter sessions of the policy-making organs in recent
years which has been approved by Member States.
In this connection the Group is of the view that continuation of
informal consultations with all Member States facilitates the work of the
Secretariat and provides a constructive environment, particularly from the
economic point of view.
The Group appreciates the UNIDO's proposals regarding programme and budgets, 2002-2003. With regard to Major Program B, General Management, the Group welcomes the idea for maintaining effectiveness and efficiency of the programme's implementation. For this purpose, the Group believes that clear and defined targets to measure the effectiveness and efficiency of the programmes implementation are crucial. Therefore, the Group would appreciate if UNIDO could provide the performance measurement and indicators.
Regarding this Major Programme, it is stated by the Secretariat that its
objective is to ensure that in the current economic climate of
globalisation, the target is the reduction of poverty through wealth
creation. The principle objective is to ensure that developing countries
as well as economies in transition get clear access to knowledges, skills,
information and technology relevant to industrialization and
transformation.
The Group is of the view that to reach a sustainable industrial
development, developing countries need to have capacity-building for
design and implementation of effective SME policies and the development of
a coherent set of specialized support institutions to stimulate and
promote SME development.
Therefore, the Group wishes to express its great concern for the
reduction of 6 per cent of the budget allocated to this relevant Major
Programme for the industrialization of our economies.
As UNIDO's role is specifically mandated through General Conference
resolution GC.8/Res.2 on GEF related activities and GC.8/Res.3 on
sustainable industrial development, the Group encourages the initiatives
proposed under Major Programme D, the efficient implementation of which
will contribute to the formulation and the elaboration of the adequate
infrastructure of sustainable industrial development.
The substance of the Programmes Agro-Industries (D.1), Industrial
Energy and Kyoto Protocol (D.2), Environment Management (D.4) and
Direction and Management (D.5) is of utmost importance to the Organization
and the Member States, particularly developing countries. The Group wishes
to recall that the priority for developing countries among them LDC's is
to add value to their agricultural products, to strengthen the industrial
capacities, to control and reduce the environment of degradation by
introducing cleaner and sustainable industrial production, environmentally
sound technologies and energy efficiency improvements for industrial
production.
The Group is aware that the sub-programmes D.1, D.2, D.3, D.4 and D.5
are very relevant and vital for developing countries but the full
implementation and the strengthening of the existing infrastructures
require higher budget. Therefore, the Group expresses its concern
regarding the reduction of 5 per cent proposed in the budget allocated to
this Major Programme.
Therefore the Group wishes to express its concern for the reduction
of the budget allocated to these two Major Programmes (C&D) which
provide the backbone of the Organization and which aim at strengthening
industrial capacities. This should be examined with the view to maintain
an adequate level of resources for these programme.
We are convinced that the best way to enable UNIDO to implement its
technical cooperation activities, particularly in the field of
agro-industries, in order to alleviate poverty, is not to reduce the share
of the budget allocated to these two major programmes.
Although the Group understands the pressures facing the Organization,
we request that it finds innovative ways to reduce costs without affecting
the core programmes of the Organization.
The Group of 77 and China recalls that the issues of field
representation and effective decentralization are of the utmost importance
to the Organization.
The Group commends the efforts made by the Secretariat, within the
existing resources, to ensure a coherent and demand driven approach to
UNIDO assistance at country and regional levels in order to foster
industrialization as a means of economic development.
The Group has taken note of the planned phased redeployment of human
resources from Headquarters to the field, in order to consolidate the
existing Fields Offices in the context of programme and project
formulation and implementation, because, we are convinced that the
establishment of effective and well-staffed field offices contributes to
the industrialization of our region, as clearly stressed in the Business
Plan.
The Group would like to thank the Secretariat for the preparation of the
document PBC 17/5 titled scale of assessment for apportionment of the
regular Budget Expenses. We considered its content and we noted that
General Assembly resolution 55/5 B-F adopted on 23 December 2000 had set a
new United Nations scale of assessments for the three years 2001-2003,
while recognized at the same time that this should have no automatic
implication on the scale of assessment of the specializes agencies and the
International Atomic Energy Agency.
The Group is of the view that due to the special mandate of the
Organization and taking into consideration article 15.2 of its
constitution it will be beneficial to maintain the scale of assessment at
the current level with the same ceiling, in order to stabilize and
consolidate the financial situation of UNIDO.
While reiterating its appeal to all states to pay all their financial
dues and assessed contributions in full and on time, the group would like
to express its readiness to collaborate with other partners to ensure the
best conditions to enable UNIDO to discharge its mandate.
The Group of 77 and China takes note of document PBC.17/4, reporting the
status of the Fund as at 31 December 2000 and proposing the level and
authorized purposes of the Working Capital Fund for the biennium
2002-2003.
In this regard, the Group is of the view that the current level and
purposes of the Fund should be the same for the next fiscal period.
The Group would also like to call upon Member States to pay their
outstanding assessed contributions in order to keep the Fund replenished
to its authorized level and allow the utilization of the Fund in
accordance with the approved purposes.
The Group of 77 and China would like to seize this opportunity to
commend Ambassador Freudenschuss-Reichl of Austria for her efforts as
Chairperson of the Intersessional Working Group and to take note of the
report contained in document PBC.17/11.
The Group has participated constructively in the meetings of the
Intersessional Working Group, bearing in mind the need to address the
critical financial situation of UNIDO. In that regard, the Group supports
the recommendation to create at the same time, two special accounts, for
BMS and RPTC that would not be subject to Financial Regulations 4.2 (b)
and 4.2 (c), as a provisional measure.
The Group of 77 and China would like to emphasize that in both cases
the rationality is to make the use of financial resources possible beyond
the biennium for which they were approved, in order to allow the
continuity of the projects and activities during the following fiscal
period. The adoption of both special accounts would mean administrative
savings, which would benefit UNIDO.
The Group would like to reiterate its readiness to continue the
negotiation process within the Intersessional Working Group, in order to
achieve a permanent solution that would allow the Organization to fully
utilize the appropriations under the regular budget. For this purpose, the
Group deems important to extent the mandate of the Intersessional Working
Group with a view to discussing possible amendments of the Financial
Regulations as a long-term goal.
The Group has taken note with great concern of the diminution of the net
project and programme approvals from all sources of funds from 81.6
million US dollars in 1999 to 76.9 million US dollars in 2000.
The Group is convinced that for UNIDO to accomplish the task assigned
to it in the Business Plan and the Services Modules, sufficient resources
must be made available to enable it to undertake the work successfully.
The Group is convinced that for UNIDO to accomplish the task assigned
to it in the Business Plan and the Services Modules, sufficient resources
must be made available to enable it to undertake the work successfully.
The Group welcomes the increase of the programmable donor funds from
3.2 million US dollars to 6.2 million US dollars and seizes this
opportunity to thank all countries who made contributions to the IDF in
order to facilitate the programming of UNIDO's technical cooperation
activities.
The Group commends the successful initiatives of the Secretariat in
the agreements with GEF and the European Commission which permit UNIDO to
enlarge its sources of funds mobilization for the implementation of its
projects and programmes.
The Group takes note that the funds mobilized for the integrated
programmes during 2000 amounts to 32.4 million US dollars, an increase of
more than one third over the 23.7 million of 1999. However, this level is
far from enough for the full implementation of the elaborated integrated
programmes.
Therefore, the Group requests the Secretariat to continue its funds
mobilization efforts with a view to increasing the level of technical
cooperation delivery. In conclusion, the Group would like the Secretariat
to allocate more funds for programme delivery and reduce the
administrative costs. The regular budget which is based on mandatory
assessed contributions is Euro 133,689 million whereas operational budget
met from voluntary contributions is Euro 21.998 million, which is only
14.12% of the total budget. The share of regular and operational budget
should be made more equitable.
Thank you Madame Chair.
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