STATEMENT DELIVERED ON BEHALF OF G77 AND CHINA BY MR. SlVU MAQUNGO, MINISTER COUNSELLOR OF THE REPUBLIC OF SOUTH AFRICA, AT INFORMAL MEETING OF THE PLENARY TO CONSIDER THE REPORT OF THE SECRERTARY-GENERAL ENTITLED "MANDATING AND DELIVERING: ANALYSIS AND RECOMMENDATIONS TO FACILITATE THE REVIEW OF MANDATES" New York, 7 April 2006

Mr. Co-Chair, I have the honour to speak on behalf of the Group of 77 and China on the question of the report of the Secretary-General relating to Mandate Review. We thank the SecretaryGeneral for his report, which will be helpful in facilitating our work. Member States, have had an opportunity to interact with the Secretariat and clarify our expectations regarding the review. Unlike the process on the review of rules and regulations, we believe that the interaction in January and February this year has resulted in a product that has largely responded to the concerns and views of Member States. The Group of 77 and China has stated its position on the mandate review exercise in previous meetings of the Informal Working Group of the Plenary. The overall position remains unchanged and I wish today to highlight only some of the points. As stated before, the Group expects that the Secretariat will submit information on mandates that are older than five years for the consideration of the General Assembly and other Organs during 2006, as stated in the World Summit Outcome Document. Mandates older than five years that have been amended or reaffirmed in the past five years fall outside the scope of the exercise. In the same vein, mandates that have been established in the past five years, even if they are building on mandates that are older than five years, clearly do not fall within the scope of the exercise. We maintain that we do not have the mandate to amend the Outcome decisions by modifying either the scope of the exercise or the timelines for our consideration of the information to be submitted by the SecretaryGeneral. We note that the Registry of mandates includes mandates older than five years that have been renewed and some not renewed and mandates adopted within the past five years. We understand that the inclusion of the mandates, which do not fall under the scope of the review exercise, is only for reference purposes so that Member States may see the totality of mandates. The Group of 77 and China wishes to restate our position that, the objective of the exercise, as reflected in the Outcome Document, is to "strengthen and update the work of the Organization so that it responds to the contemporary requirements of Member States." The work of the Organization is geared towards implementing the legislative decisions and mandates adopted by the inter-governmental bodies of the United Nations. We, therefore, believe that it is imperative to stress that the final result of the exercise should be to ensure that the Organization is able to implement the entire range of its mandates more effectively and efficiently. The G77 and China does not accept that the

exercise is intended to change the inter-governmental nature of our decision-making, oversight and monitoring processes. Neither is it to reduce the budget levels of the Organization or to fund more activities from within the existing pool of resources, nor is it meant to redefine the roles and responsibilities assigned to the various Organs of the United Nations by the Charter. We have always maintained the position that Member States should be ready to provide the United Nations with adequate resources in order to ensure that the mandates, that we entrust to it, are implemented effectively. We cannot expect the Secretariat to undertake more activities effectively if we are not ready to increase the resource levels, in particular for development activities. We further stated that "In our view, it would be useful to keep the process as simple as possible by keeping within the guidelines set by the World Summit Outcome Document. Our expectations should be realistic and our intentions clear. We, therefore, wish to state clearly that we should avoid arbitrarily assigning criteria according to which we would undertake this exercise." We note that the Secretary-General's report has identified four problems, which the mandate review exercise may wish to resolve and we shall engage in discussion on these four areas and any other areas we may identify with an open mind. Furthermore Mr. Co-Chair we wish to stress our earlier position that the timeline for the exercise has been clearly set by the World Summit Outcome Document and we do not believe that the setting of artificial deadlines for the conclusion of the review is helpful or even realistic. It is clear from the report and database that the exercise will take time and Member States will require inputs from capitals. The Group of 77 and China previously requested the Secretariat include in the database an assessment of the status of implementation of mandates, as well as the reason for nonor less than full implementation. This element is unfortunately lacking from the report and database. It, therefore, is important to ensure that Member States are able to interact with programme managers throughout the process and we trust that the Co-Chairs will reflect this in the proposed programme of work. Mr. Co-Chair, The Group of 77 and China wish to repeat that it supports a meaningful reform that is reflective of the views of the collective Membership. We want to strengthen the Organization and ensure that it is able to effectively and efficiently implement all the mandates that we have bestowed upon it. A stronger United Nations that responds more effectively to our collective needs is in our common interest. We shall study carefully the report of the Secretary-General on review of mandates and shall offer more detailed comments on the text in our following meetings I thank you.