Ministry Statements & Speeches:
We thank the co-chairs for their work and we are pleased to provide some feedback on the report and its recommendations presented here today.
Firstly, on the SIDS partnership framework, we support in particular the need to strengthen the Steering Committee to ensure meaningful and strategic engagement. Ensuring that the Steering Committee provides a platform to discuss implementation of ABAS and emerging SIDS issues is a useful role for the Committee.
Across all the recommendations we seek to support work that is complementary and avoids duplication of work being done elsewhere.
We note the delineation of responsibilities between parts of the UN system set out in the recommendations and we encourage the meaningful consideration and implementation of paragraph 36 of ABAS which calls for the UN Secretary General to present proposals to ensure a coordinated, coherent and effective UN system-wide approach to SIDS including a potential single SIDS-dedicated entity in the UN Secretariat. Ensuring that fragmentation of limited resources is avoided is critical.
On the SIDS Global Business Network and its Forum, we agree with and support the recommendations from member states. In particular, we see value in building capacity for MSMEs which in turn would help with the value proposition for the Network and raise awareness of the Network.
While we commend the ambition of many of the recommendations from the UN system and interagency consultative group we would reiterate our view that any actions which may have PBIs and large budgetary implications need to be carefully assessed in the context of the UN’s liquidity crisis and constrained fiscal environment. For New Zealand, our priority is supporting ABAS implementation as well as other major negotiated outcomes which benefit SIDS such as UNOC and Pact for the Future. For SIDS, as we all know, ABAS is the hard won framework that we all agreed to support and should be the guiding light for the UN’s SIDs related work. In our view it is crucial that any work undertaken under the SIDS Partnership Framework should be linked to the priorities outlined in ABAS.
Having worked closely with both co-chairs during the SIDS4 process, New Zealand has no doubt that the Steering Committee is in good hands. We thank both co-chairs for their work and reiterate New Zealand’s commitment to strengthening the SIDS Partnership Framework and implementation of ABAS.