CHAIRMAN: I first would like to apologize to delegates that we start 20 minutes later than was indicated but I think it was worthwhile. I would thank very much the distinguished delegates of Mexico, India, Canada, Colombia, Norway, the Netherlands and Yugoslavia for having sacrificed part of their luncheon break to sit and try to find a reconciling formula of the draft resolution. May I kindly invite the distinguished delegate of India to present the views that have come up in the little group.
M.S. SWAMINATHAN (India): At the meeting I have just taken, the following suggestions were put forward for the consideration of the Commission with regard to Resolution 81. The title of the Resolution will be “Establishment of an International Plant Germplasm Bank of Agricultural Interest Under the Auspices of FAO”.
The next suggested change, Mr. Chairman, is in the preamble in the paragraph starting; “Recalling further that countries, faced with the possibility of these resources being used as an instrument of pressure”, omitting “political and/or economic”.. just with “instrument of pressure, have pointed out at various technical meetings” etc., and then the rest of it remains the same.
Coming to the operative part of the Resolution, the present number 2, paragraph two, will become paragraph 1. “Requests the Director-General to examine and prepare the elements of a draft international convention - of a draft international convention - including legal provisions designed to ensure that global plant genetic resources will be conserved and used for the benefit of all human beings, of this and future generations, without restrictive practices that limit their availability or exchange, whatever the source of such practices. This will be number 1.
Number 2; “Requests the Director-General to prepare a proposal for the establishment of an international bank of plant genetic resources under the auspices of FAO, taking into account the provisions of the proposed international convention and on-going national, regional and international efforts in this field”.
The third paragraph, Mr. Chairman, will be as follows; - “Requests the Director-General to present proposals based on the studies mentioned to the Committee on Agriculture for consideration at its Seventh Session in 1983, so that they may be submitted through the Council to the Twenty-second Session of the FAO Conference”.
CHAIRMAN: Thank you very much distinguished delegates of India. I feel that this is indeed a very substantial compromise that we may have achieved so far.
A. JUAN MARCOS ISSA (México): Señor Presidente, le agradecemos también a usted y a todos los presentes la reunión informal a la que nos citó y en especial al distinguido delegado de la India por su colaboración y excelente trabajo que ha realizado.
Creo que se olvidó mencionar en la nueva Resolución 2 después de plantas de recursos fitogenéticos, incluir la frase “de interés agrícola” para que rece en concordancia con el título del proyecto de resolución.
Por otra parte, Sr. Presidente, nosotros pensamos que en español sólo la palabra “auspicios” no significa que este banco o este posible banco esté bajo el control de una institución intergubernamental de carácter internacional. Por eso consideramos que en español por lo menos debe decir “bajo los auspicios y control de la FAO”, queriendo señalar con esto que no solamente la FAO va a alentar la creación de un banco, sino que la FAO en todo caso va a controlar a dicho banco como el organismo de las Naciones Unidas más representative para estos fines.
Por lo tanto, Sr. Presidente, estas modificaciones vendrían en todas y cada una de las partes que diga “auspicios”, debiendo decir “auspicios y control de la FAO”.
CHAIRMAN: I think the suggestion made by the delegate of Mexico would implicitly now bring about the situation where we have the heading in English “under the auspices and control of FAO” and I think in French it would be “sous les auspices et le contrôle de la FAO”.
Miss C. McASKIE (Canada): I wonder if it would not be helpful at this stage if we could just leave it at the word “auspices”. I fully understand the point made by my Mexican colleague and I think this could be very readily be taken into account much later when we come actually to the question of establishing the international bank. At that time the role of FAO would of course be defined absolutely. Right now we are only calling for proposals, so perhaps the word “auspices” would suffice for the moment.
Sra. Doña A. CAVERO (España): Creo que me corresponde decir algo en este momento sobre la palabra “auspicios” que no entiendo que en español quiera decir control ni dependencia, sino solamente un alentar el proyecto o alentar estos elementos para el proyecto. Creo que en español no se puede decir “auspicios”, es una palabra que no resume la idea de control ni dependencia.
Además de agradecer al Presidente y a cuantos han trabajado en la reunión informal convocada anteriormente y que nos han facilitado el texto, quería pedir que en el segundo párrafo modificado, la palabra “propuesta” fuera seguida de “proyecto”, o sea “propuesta de proyecto”, porque una propuesta simplemente no dice nada completo; es una “propuesta de proyecto”.
Mr.S. ZEHNI (Libya): I have to speak in English because the amendments and the text are in English, so I shall try best to be clear in that language. I think the words “auspices and control” are not a language matter. Those who suggested “auspices” of course know the meaning of the word and avoiding custody means avoiding control, so it is clearly not a linguistic point.
However I start from what the delegate from Canada has just mentioned and I will use this the other way around. If it is a proposal which is not for anybody to follow, let it explore the possibilities, it is not committing anybody now. But when we ask the FAO for a proposal the FAO has to be very clear: are we talking about auspices or about control of the FAO or custody of the FAO? Because I am sure the proposal which we submitted will be completely different in many ways. So if we have no fear of commitment at this stage, let us put it very clearly that it is “auspices and control”, “and/or control”, if you like, because we want to see a proposal where it is taken control of by FAO, we see that is for and against it, or a proposal for “auspices”, because the two things are different. This is my first point.
The second point is just a question. In the second new paragraph there is talk about the ongoing international efforts. I would be very glad if I could be given an example of these international ongoing activities because if the reference is to the agricultural research centres then I do not think, especially in the collection or in the gene banks they are keeping, they are international in the sense that they are, as we said this morning, international. They are very independent bodies. They are not even responsible immediately to the CGIAR, the mother group, they are autonomous and are run by a few learned men chosen on their personal capacity. They are run by boards of directors and they are completely independent.
So I would be grateful if the international ongoing activities could be explained a little further before I comment further.
CHAIRMAN: I would like to come in here and indicate that the phrase “regional, national and international efforts”, as suggested in the wording of the delegate of India, was embracing the activities as we have them now. I may not be aware of all of them or know them but I am sure the Secretariat would and the FAO would take into account, with its best knowledge, the ongoing efforts that exist at present. I do not qualify them, now but I have confidence that the Secretariat of FAO would be in a good position to value and judge what should be taken into account.
I think the point is open now about “under the auspices and control of FAO” as against “under the auspices of FAO” alone. Perhaps we could ask the Legal Counsel to advise us on the indications of custody and control as against the auspices of FAO.
LEGAL COUNSEL: “Under the auspices of FAO” is a very generic term. It. means essentially that FAO takes the initiative for establishing an entity. The relationship between FAO and that entity can be of various types. The entity can be so closely related to FAO that it. could be an integral part of the structure of FAO. That is the solution at one end of the scale.
At the other end of the scale there is the possibility of FAO giving its assistance to an existing institution or to the establishment of new entity that is to fulfill these tasks completely outside the framework of FAO. It would still be created under the auspices of FAO but it would be completely autonomous and all the ties that might exist between FAO and that entity would be in the form of a relationship agreement, assuming that that entity is an intergovernmental body.
There are some intermediate solutions: one that immediately comes to mind is an institution created under Article XV of the Constitution. The Conference has adopted a number of Guiding Principles relating to so-called Article XV bodies and although they were originally intended mainly as research and training institutes they could also be adapted to the type of institution that is now being envisaged. It should be kept in mind, however, that the legal status of that institution is also outlined in the Principles which related inter alia, to the contents of an agreement establishing such an institution. I quote from Section T of the Basic Texts: “The agreement should contain a clause to the effect that the institute is to be recognized as an international foundation and is to have the capacity of a legal person to perform any legal act”. It would, therefore, be an institution that has its own legal personality and could, therefore, not be in any way under the custody of FAO. There might be some measure of control that FAO could exercise, but these control measures are limited, for instance, through the representation on the governing board of that institution of the Director-General or his representative, or the submission of the programme of work of the institution to FAO.
To sum up, I think that the term “control” is likely to prejudge the freedom of the Director-General, to some extent at least, in devising methods that could lead to the objective that I understand the Conference is pursuing at this time. As I said, the term “auspices” is the broadest term but I would caution against the use of the term “control” and “supervision” and “custody” would certainly not be appropriate, unless the entity were entirely within the administrative framework of FAO, and directly under the control of the Director-General and of the governing bodies of the Organization.
CHAIRMAN: As I am not a legally trained person, I see it in a more simple fashion. I regret to say so. Where we departed from was the following position, the Mexican draft text clearly spelled out the word ‘custody’, taking into consideration that there would be an organization to which Member States would have confidence to entrust in this organization a very important job for the future of agriculture and development. In the small working group one wanted to get rid of that word, and one has found then the term ‘auspices’ that seems to satisfy not totally now the Mexican delegation, but I have seen also a certain waving of the head of the distinguished lady from Canada that it also did not satisfy her completely to have ‘the control’ at least to have ‘the control’ in the resolution, I mean. Maybe the distinguished delegate of the United States can offer us a solution?
A.E. GUROFF (United States of America): Thank you, Mr. Chairman, but I suspect my offering will result in more confusion rather than less. Frankly, I think that this discussion about ‘auspices’ versus ‘custody’ is really missing the point. The U.S. on that particular question does not preclude the possibility of either FAO ‘auspices’ or ‘custody’, or both, or neither. I think the problem we have in front of us is the vast disparity of views that were expressed in the morning debate which took several hours, as I recall, do not seem to have really been dealt with by the contact group that was formed. It seemed to reflect a fairly narrow range of concerns, and as a result I think we are trying now to tinker with words on a document where we are not really even in agrement on what ball park
we are playing in yet. I do not think it is particularly to worry at this point about ‘auspices’ versus ‘custody’. I do not think dropping of the words ‘political and or economic’ before the word ‘pressure’ conceals the difficulty with the notion that remains. We are not talking about geothermal pressure here, I presume, so all we are doing really is trying to paper over rather strong differences that a number of countries expressed this morning, and I do not think we are going to accomplish that here in this group this afternoon. I think that the U.S. still has virtually all of the same problems after hearing the contact group’s report, that we had this morning, and I suspect from looking at others that that is still true. So perhaps we need a reading of the broader issue of where we are, and how to get over our hurdle, and not spend a lot of time at this point on the legal nuances of the word ‘auspices’.
CHAIRMAN: I thank the delegate of the United States. After that careful analysis could we also have out of this analysis a constructive proposal?
A.E. GUROFF (United States of America): Mr. Chairman, the United States intervention this morning was offered in the spirit of trying to find a ground, a middle ground, that we could all agree to. We tried to be as constructive as we could, given the limitations of time, resources, and the job we have in front of us. What we have this afternoon is basically a proposal to go back to very close to the original proposition. So I think if we are going to be constructive we are going to have to find some way to come together on this, not just continue on the same course until those that have difficulties decide to forget about them. That is not going to happen.
CHAIRMAN: Thank you. I did not notice when the distinguished delegate of the United States returned to the Conference room. Can I take it that you took into account the suggestions made regarding the amendments to the operative paragraphs?
A.E. GUROFF (United States of America): Mr. Chairman, let me repeat again. I listened with care to the proposals of the contact group. I found them not to deal with the fundamental problems that a number of countries raised in the morning, and I think that perhaps this is largely the result of the way in which the contact group was constituted, not reflecting the spectrum of opinions and difficulties we have in the House. I think we need to find another way of coming together on this.
CHAIRMAN: Any suggestions? Let me re-state again, I think the distinguished delegates of Mexico, Canada, Colombia, Norway, the Netherlands, India and Yugoslavia did their best to find a formula, and to find formulations that could be carried by a larger majority than we saw this morning, and their sincerity that was demonstrated by all these delegates during that little working session during the luncheon break was impressive to me. I do not want in any way to minimize now the keeness and support shown by the delegates during that time.
J.L.F. BUIST (United Kingdom): Mr. Chairman, unlike my U.S. colleague I have not been present all the time, but my delegation has been present, and I equally think I have a clear grasp of the suggestions which have been made. First of all, I would like to say how very grateful we are to you yourself, and those delegations whom you have mentioned now who did make the efforts which have had the result set out in these amendments put forward to us. I note, however, that there are already suggestions that these do not completely meet the views even of those delegations that took part, and it is plain from the U.S. intervention, with much of which I sympathize myself, that it does not equally cover the views of many of those who were absent. I think myself that that puts us in a difficult position. Either we have to try and deal with this line by line and word by word, which would take up a great deal of time and be extremely difficult for this meeting, and, indeed, for yourself, or perhaps we have to have this wider range of views on both sides, on both sides of the spectrum, reflected in further efforts to be conducted under, if I may put it this way, your own auspices, and perhaps even your own control.
CHAIRMAN: Thank you for the confidence you are showing. You are very kind.
M. TRKULJA (Yugoslavia): Mr. Chairman, we feel that after the debate of this morning we have, I think, almost reached a full agreement on the text of the Resolution, including also your own understanding of what we are asking the Director-General to do. It is my feeling at least that even those present in the small working party, as you yourself said, certainly satisfied some of their concerns, and we put it now, I think, in proper sequence, asking, first of all, the Director-General to provide elements for the draft before the Commission, and then in connection with these, of course, we ask the Director-General to study carefully the issue which is very closely interlinked, that is for a bank.
That, as I understood it, was your own understanding of what we agreed in the small group, and, in the light of what legal counsel said, I feel that “the auspices” covers the whole range of possibilities and would keep open all options for the Director-General to consider. I would very strongly suggest that we agreed with “the auspices” instead of “the custody”, which seems to be a bit narrower, and adopt this resolution which, I would say again, meets more or less all concerns, including the concerns of the United States delegation, because I do not think that even pressure against them - why not?
CHAIRMAN: This is just a suggestion from the floor, but I wonder if that resolution, as it is now in front of us and as it was kindly read out by the distinguished delegate of India, is carried by a large number of delegates here and we would just find an expression of reservation by those who cannot go along with it.
J.L.F. BUIST (United Kingdom): I am trying to reflect on the situation which we have here in the Conference, but I also think we have to consider the realities which will have to be met if the proposal in the form in which it has been discussed, or in one of the many forms, is to come to fruition. It seems to my delegation that we should look at the facts, at what is outside this conference hall, at what exists around the world in all the different institutions where there would be need for a very wide consensus indeed for an effective set of arrangements, whatever those may be, to be produced and given the full backing of the international community. I think it is on that that we ought to reflect first and not on how quickly, or how, we should dispose of these texts in front of us. The fact is that we can pass resolutions here, we can set up institutions - alas, this happened sometimes before -which then are not adequately endorsed by those people who have to make wider decisions about the related questions outside, in our governments and elsewhere.
I think, on that basis, we ought to perhaps pause a little for reflection, and you might feel yourself, Mr. Chairman, that it would be desirable to take a short break or to devote a little more thought to this before giving us further guidance on how we should proceed now. We can, of course, pursue the course which you have just suggested, but I do invite you to think what then may happen about the effectiveness of any text which carried with it a large number of reservations or numbers of dissent. I am not sure that that is the best way of getting at what we all, and I believe FAO generally, would wish to see.
CHAIRMAN: I should like to repeat that this morning 37 countries spoke to this subject. Twelve, while accepting the thrust of the Mexican resolution, were not agreeable to the format and to the text of the resolution as presented to us. Those 12 countries included the Nordic group and Canada. I would infer from the work done during the luncheon break that the Nordic group went along with the proposal that we had submitted and had presented later by the distinguished delegate of India. I also thought that the distinguished delegate of Canada was in agreement with that approach. That left us with 5 countries less, which meant that there were seven countries remaining opposed to the Mexican draft resolution and the rest were speaking in favour.
I would appeal to you all in the spirit of a democratic procedure in that forum that we should reflect somehow that situation, in whatever manner you like. I am in your hands, distinguished delegates, but my proposal was that we should now come to a conclusion, saying that a number, which you can establish, supported that resolution, while the others had reservations.
DIRECTOR-GENERAL: I have no reservations myself about carrying out any study. We shall be happy to carry out the studies which are envisaged in this resolution. I understand very well the position of some governments, and I would hope that they could not have reservations on the studies. They may have reservations later on when a decision has to be taken to establish a bank or to agree on a convention. All that is requested by the majority now is for studies to be carried out. This is what I understand from the resolution which is now under consideration. It requests me to formulate proposals for the establishment of an international plant genetic resources. I do not think anyone can disagree on studying reports and examining proposals.
Certainly it would be impossible, as was implied in some statements, for FAO and for all member countries to carry out any project without the full cooperation and support of some countries which have the data and material which will need to be disseminated. I would say that, without the United States without the United Kingdom, and even without the USSR and others, the bank would be a failure and never function. Therefore, I hope that at this stage they will not make reservations about a study. Later on they can make their comments. In fact, the study has to convince the donors - I am not talking in financial terms - of the usefulness of disseminating such genetic material.
We are in your hands, Mr. Chairman. The proposed study is not an easy one. It will require great care. There will be many alternatives and scenarios. We know that no proposal would succeed if those countries which have played a very important role in the past, with regard to plant genetic material, and continue to do so, are not willing to cooperate.
CHAIRMAN: I again draw the attention of delegates to the third operative paragraph which requests the Director-General to present proposals and so forth to the Committee on Agriculture and, through the Council, to the Conference. Therefore, we have the full range of consultation within the bodies of FAO ahead of us.
M.S. ZEHNI (Libya): The Director-General has just said part of what I wanted to say: what we are asking about now is just proposals for a study, and there is time later on for anybody to express their opinions on this.
I personally approach this subject because of the interest I have in it and the importance I attach to it. In that sense, I agree with the previous speaker that this resolution should really be given the chance to be accepted by all and that it is not just a matter of numbers for and against, I accept this. I am sure that the Director-General and the Secretariat, once they embark on considering this proposal, will take into consideration, as they always do, all the views that have been expressed during this debate and at the same time will take into consideration all the views that they will encounter in their wide consultation. At this stage, therefore, I feel that the cooperation of everybody from all sides is necessary, and there will be room for everybody to express their views when we come to the actual thing.
I add my appeal to your appeal, Mr. Chairman, that we should accept the resolution as it stands now because it only calls for a proposal and study.
J.L.F. BUIST (United Kingdom): I find the Director-General’s remarks extremely helpful to my delegation. I think he is absolutely right in the way in which he considers it correct to approach this subject if the conference passes a resolution of this kind. At the same time, I think that the difficulties arise precisely because the studies which he mentioned are not, in fact, the exact terms of this resolution. It talks about proposals. Proposals already pre-judge the result of a study, and herein lies the real difficulty for my own delegation. I can assure the Director-General that in many ways my delegation is willing to be convinced on this, but it wishes to be convinced on the facts of what is actually required. I think that the best way to deal with this is, indeed, to make slight changes to the operative paragraphs 1 and 2, in order to talk about preparing studies on the possible establishment and the elements thereof in what used to be 1 and what used to be 2, and in the new paragraph 1 again request the Director-General to examine and to study, etc.
I am not making a formal drafting proposal now because I feel it is not very sensible to try to do that in so large a group, but I think that, with changes of this kind, we would have a consensus which would enable the Secretariat to go forward in the fullest confidence that the work that we are doing was backed widely by member nations.
A. RODRIGUES PIRES (Cap-Vert): Ma délégation rejoint l’opinion des orateurs qui m’ont précéde. Tout le monde parle de développement rural, que ce soit à Cancún ou à Paris. Nous pensons donc que cette résolution mérite d’être adoptée.
A.E. GUROFF (United States of America): I am trying to pick up on a number of threads here. First of all, I want to make it clear that the United States also values the proposal and we should hate to see a solution to this that splintered us into something that some had reservations on, and as a result of which we could not move forward in any direction.
I should also like to associate the United States with the United Kingdom’s comments. We fully agree with what the Director-General has said.
In fact, we agree with what the Yugoslav delegation indicated, that we do not want to preclude FAO from looking, in its studies, at all feasible options. Our problem is that we do not think the words we are dealing with here reflect the sense of what the Director-General and the Yugoslav delegate has said.
If we take the Director-General’s formulation as the spirit of what we are trying to come away with here, and take that perhaps into yet another small compact group to sort out some of these nuances, we can probably come together on these fairly readily; but if we are going to go to a compact group we need to leave this hall with some framework agreed upon. As I say, we would concur that the Director-General has captured that in his intervention.
Mile M. MUSSO (France): Je voudrais simplement indiquer que nous partageons la preoccupation exprimée par le représentant du Royaume-Uni. Les modifications qui on été proposées par le Groupe de travail - nous reconnaissons que c’était un travail difficile, et nous l’en remercions - ne nous paraissent pas malheureusement répondre aux objections presentees ce matin par de nombreuses délégations et préjugent des conclusions de l’étude que nous demandons au Directeur général et à la FAO d’entreprendre.
Nous souhaitons donc que cette étude soit faite d’bord, et nous savons que la FAO la fera avec soin et examinera tous les points et possibilités. Nous souhaitons qu’aucune recommandation sur une Convention pour la création d’une banque internationale ne soit présentée avant que la FAO n’ait fait cette étude et en ait tiré les conclusions nécessaires. Une fois que cette étude aura été faite et présentée au COAG, nous verrons si nous devons préparer une Convention pour établir une banque internationale dans la mesure où cela s’avérera fiable et réaliste. Mais pour le moment nous ne pouvons pas préjuger des résultats de cette étude et demander à l’avance, dans la résolution, que soit préparé un projet de banque dont nous ne sommes pas sûrs que ce soit la meilleure solution.
Comme le Royaume-Uni, nous voudrions un consensus sur ce sujet où toutes les opinions seraient reflétées et qui laisserait à la FAO le soin de faire toutes les etudes nécessaires pour que nous en discutions les conclusions ultérieurement.
A.G. NGONGI NAMANGA (Cameroon): I am a little baffled by all the arguments which have taken place this morning and this afternoon. Throughout the debate it has been quite clear that the idea of having some form of structure to safeguard plant genetic resources is very much needed by many countries.
The delegate from Libya gave us a long account of the evolution of this idea of the creation of a bank, which I thought was commendable, a history which places much emphasis on the problems which many countries have had in having genetic material. The delegate from Peru gave some examples and most of us took note of them.
There have been many arguments pro and con but even the countries not in a position to accept all the segments of the resolution as at present realize that there is a need for such a structure.
We may depend on the definitions that will be given to the structure and the particular words which should go into this resolution but what we see before us does not definitely say that FAO should present one specific study or one project for the creation of this bank. It leaves room for FAO to study the various possibilities and accepts that these proposals can come forward. I do not see why we need to be tied down in arguing about what auspices or what control, etc.
The contact group has done a good job in putting these ideas together. I would go so far as to say, without precluding any nation except the countries who insist that we have another contact group, that we should go ahead, adopt this and allow the Director-General to present a proposal which, as I see it, will give us several alternatives.
CHAIRMAN: I should like to take that suggestion up because it links up very smoothly with the one made by the delegate of the United Kingdom. Let us have another working group. I would suggest straightaway, Cameroon, with your indulgence, of course, the United Kingdom, the United States of America, the distinguished delegate of India, with the indulgence of the Indian delegation, Yugoslavia and Mexico, of course, as the country which moved the resolution. Does that meet with your agreement? Libya was a very strong advocate of that case so I would like to include him. In this way, the working group would have the advantage of some of the thoughts that were in my opinion already somehow consolidated in that first group, and those distinguished delegates from that group could carry them into the newly established one.
Sra. Dona A. CAVERO (España): Señor Presidente, España estaría interesada en formar parte de este pequeño grupo de trabajo.
CHAIRMAN: With great pleasure. Thank you for your kind offer.
D. BETI (Suisse): Ma délégation ne peut pas en offrir autant, mais je me demande s’il ne serait pas opportun que le Canada par exemple, qui a participé à midi à ce groupe, en fasse de nouveau partie, à condition évidemment que le Canada soit d’accord.
LE PRESIDENT: Je vous remercie pour cette proposition. Je vois que Madame le délégué du Canada l’accepte. It is just a question now of when this working group should meet. We have to be rational now in terms of the time available to us. It is now half past four. I look at the Secretariat on my left and suggest we prepare for an evening session because we have another resolution before us. Either that working group leaves and meets and reports back and, in the meantime, we take on the resolution on resources for food production and agricultural development; or we move on to the resolution on resources for food production and agricultural development and let that working group meet subsequently. What is your preference, distinguished delegates? You cannot tell me you have none.
I realize Cameroon is usually permanently represented here but with only one distinguished delegate. He cannot split himself, nor can the Libyan delegate, I presume. So would it be acceptable to the assembly that we move on now to the resolution on resources for food production and agricultural development and have the working group sit subsequently?
A.G. NGONGI NAMANGA (Cameroon): Either way, I shall have a problem because after this session I am supposed to take part in a drafting committee. If the contact group is going to meet after this session, I would not be able to go to both meetings, so probably Cameroon should be replaced by some other delegation.
M. TRUKLJA (Yugoslavia): I thought we were already on the last resolution. So I wanted to say something in the way of introducing it, but if you are still on the previous one, the Mexican resolution, then, of course, I am quite prepared to follow your suggestion. We will do our best to be helpful in this small working party.
A.E. GUROFF (United States of America): I know of your anxiety in getting on with this tonight and getting it over with, but it seems to me, in deference to those who cannot be in more than one place, and with a long discussion left here in Plenary, I suspect, on the next resolution, and the drafting
committee after that, that really the only alternative is for this working group to begin its business first thing tomorrow morning and take that up. I suspect we may have two draft resolutions on our plate by then. It is unfortunate that we are getting at this so late in the game but it is too important to rush into decisions at literally the eleventh hour tonight rather than have clear heads vhen we deal with it in the morning.
CHAIRMAN: The only thing I would like to point out in reply to this suggestion is that we should not shift too much of our responsibilities to Tuesday because tomorrow we have to approve the report and that is certainly going to take a very long day. I doubt very much that we will have time to work on the resolutions tomorrow.
M.S. SWAMINATHAN (India): The contact group which you convened during the lunch break tried to recapitulate the various comments which were made this morning to the best of our ability and within the time available. I thought that the revised suggestions really, as our Director-General said, were aimed at providing fairly clear-cut guidelines to the Director-General of the FAO in preparing the studies, and there was agreement among the members of the contact group.. Now that the distinguished delegate of the United States is of the view that the revised formulation really does not get the flavour of the various divergent viewpoints which were expressed this morning, what I would like to suggest is that the distinguished delegate of the United States be good enough to make a reformulation. That would be of great help to the other members of the contact group because several of the people whom we have nominated are common. In other words, the whole timing for the meeting of the contact group will have to depend upon the convenient time for the delegation of the United States. I would go along with you in suggesting that, if possible, members of the contact group should adjourn now to another place, but for that it will be useful if the US delegation can indicate whether they would be in a position to suggest suitable amendments to the revised draft as a basis for our starting the discussion.
CHAIRMAN: Could the distinguished delegate of the United States accept that suggestion?
A.E. GUROFF (United States of America): I guess I am prepared to write the thing and publish it myself, but I am not comfortable with that, frankly. Certainly, the US had specific suggestions to make but I think it is wrong to suggest that the US is somehow in the advance guard on this and that we can reflect all the different problems. Perhaps we have been more voluble in the debate but there are numerous others. I would simply suggest that we work from, when we do get together, the text as revised by today’s Contact Group, and I think with relatively minor word changes from that - perhaps not so minor substantive changes - but relatively quickly, we could go through and identify where we still have problems, but I would certainly hasten to reiterate that is the United States’ view and I am not comfortable in the suggestion that somehow that will capture the center stage where we need to wind up. I am prepared to indicate those changes as soon as we meet.
DIRECTOR-GENERAL: Thank you Mr. Chairman. I was very happy to hear the Distinguished Delegate of the United States of America. I have heard him and the Delegate of the United Kingdom, and I am ready to meet with the Contact Group. I suggest we meet after we have discussed the second resolution because as you have explained, some members of the Contact Group are here by themselves. I am ready to work with the Contact Group and I feel sure that we can reach agreement.
M. HOUYENGAH (Togo): La délégation togolaise a étudié le document C 81/LIM/29 relatif aux projets de résolutions sur la journée mondiale de l’alimentation et sur la création d’une banque internationale de matériel phytogénétique à usage agricole placée sous la garde de la FAO.
La délégation togolaise appuie fortement ces deux résolutions et voudrait intervenir plus spécialement sur la deuxième résolution, à savoir: la résolution relative à la création d’une banque intemationale de matériel phytogénétique à usage agricole placée sous la garde de la FAO.
Du reste si vous vous le rappelez, la délégation togolaise dans son intervention au niveau de la Commission II avait, le 13 novembre 1981, attiré l’attention de la Commission sur la nécessité que la recherche des variétés à haut, rendement doive tenir compte des propriétés organolytiques et des goûts des populations et recommandait vivement à la Commission de se pencher sérieusement sur le problème grave des ressources phytogénétiques.
La délégation togolaise considère que cette question a été déjà débattue dans plusieurs assises de la FAO, pour preuve, la recommandation formulée par le Comité consultatif de l’agriculture à sa première session en 1946, plusieurs autres conférences de la FAO ont eu à se pencher sur le problème de ressources phytogénétiques, et trouve que le stade d’études est révolu. Par conséquent, la délégation togolaise apporte quelques amendements à la formulation de la présente résolution: au lieu de “demande au Directeur général d’étudier les elements...”, la délégation togolaise souhaite formuler la phrase en ces termes: “Demande au Directeur général de la FAO d’élaborer un projet de création d’une banque internationale de semences à usage agricole”, le reste sans changement.
Par ailleurs, à l’alinéa 5 de la même résolution il semble qu’il y a un mot en trop, il s’agit de “en outre”, à moins qu’il y ait eu une idée qui a été supprimée...*
CHAIRMAN: I think that proposal has now been presented for the second time, and if the Commission goes along we will move on to the Resolution, the draft resolution of rural resources for food production and agricultural development. I see no objection to that.
The debate is open and the draft resolution on resources for food production and agricultural development as contained in document C 81/LIM/31.
M. A. AL-SANEH (Kuwait) (original language Arabic): I would briefly like to state that this draft resolution is merely a confirmation of one of the objectives of FAO’s tasks, the development of agriculture and of food production. But since it is related to the resources needed to achieve that objective, this draft resolution requires all member countries to provide the necessary resources. This is a very important resolution indeed, particularly if we think that there is a decline in the development of developing countries and a shortage of resources. That is why we strongly support this draft resolution. Thank you, sir.
S. P. MUKHERJEE (India): According to my mind, Mr. Chairman, this resolution represents the quintessence of all discussions and feelings that have been expressed by various countries in various commissions at the last Plenary Session. As a matter of fact I consider this Resolution to articulate the soul of this Conference. The Resolution enshrines a number of thoughts which have been repeated and re-repeated by a number of Distinguished Delegations, by our Prime Minister, by the Director-General, and even by the resolution of a similar nature, Resolution 6/79 which was passed in the same Conference in 1979, and my Delegation feels that expression of these noble thoughts would be very useful to remind ourselves of the global responsibility that each one of us has towards mankind as such.
I would like to very briefly reflect the thoughts that have been indicated in this Resolution. The Constitution of the FAO is framed round a centre theme of mankind’s fight against hunger and malnutrition, and this is exactly the feeling behind this Resolution, the central theme which runs throughout this Resolution.
Mr. Chairman at the present juncture the world is populated by a number of countries of three or four categories. There are some countries which are surplus in food and therefore they have the technology to produce food, and they have also a surplus in funds. The second category is of countries which are
surplus in funds but not surplus in food. There is still a third category of countries, which are neither surplus in funds nor surplus in food, but they have somehow gathered some experience and expertise in food production. And the last category, is that unfortunate category of countries which is placed in not being in surplus either in food or in funds or in technology.
Now the FAO’s role is to put all these four categories of countries together and have a system of international collaboration so that those who are in surplus in food share their food with those who are not so fortunately placed and have a deficiency in food. Those who are surplussed in funds but not surplussed in food, they can buy the food with the funds that they have at their disposal, and those who have the knowledge and experience and technology, they can share the technology with other countries who are not so well placed. Now this mutual collaboration between these four categories of countries is, I think the foundation on which the FAO is built and is the foundation of the Director-General’s thoughts on FAO having a global society, and that is also the idea which our Prime Minister indicated in the McDougall lecture about self-reliance and global collaboration.
Now this resolution is also based on this theme of self-reliance and collective collaboration between the various countries, for having more food production and self-reliance, and of course the idea in FAO’s activities is to promote self-reliance in a manner so that those countries which are not self-reliant today and have to depend on others by virtue’ of collaboration are able to stand on their own legs insofar as food-self sufficiency as well as technology of production is concerned.
Sharing of food, sharing of technology and helping the less fortunate countries with aid and trade, are other thoughts which have been indicated in this Resolution to be implemented through the FAO, and of course it goes without saying, as I had indicated earlier also in this house, that the collective wisdom of the world community had established Food and Agriculture Organization as the northern agency, as the apex agency for conceiving and executing of ideas which will help in increasing food production, agricultural development and rural development, and if all these ideas have to be implemented through the FAO it is but necessary that the FAO is back-stopped by financial arrangements so that they are able to discharge the responsibility cast on them, and that is why in one of the points which have been indicated in this Resolution, expression has been made of the urging of this Conference to the world community, that funds should be given to the FAO through the various conduits like IFAD, Special Action Programmes i.e. and IFAD so on, so that FAO is strengthened and the hands of FAO are strengthened in discharging its responsibility.
So in that context, Mr. Chairman, we fully support this Resolution as we are one of the first sponsors of this Resolution, and if this Conference has to go down in the annals of humanity as one of the milestones in humanity’s effort to have self reliance through international collaboration, I think this Resolution should be adopted by this house without any reservation.
R. GARCELL (Cuba): Respetamos las opiniones expresadas por unas pocas delegaciones en cuanto a la preocupación en esta comisión para aprobar la resolución: “Recursos para la producción alimentaria y el desarrollo agrícola”, e incluso solicitar orientaciones a sus capitales.
Varias reuniones internacionales, señor Presidente, incluso celebradas recientemente coinciden con constancia de criterio, en cuanto a la necesidad de aliviar la impresionante situación alimentaria; tales pronunciamientos han contado con la opinión favorable de cuantos comentarios hemos conocido. El proyecto de resolución que se nos ha presentado es amplio y en lo fundamental es una exhortación a mantener la prioridad que requiere la preocupación alimentaria y no comprendemos cómo es posible rechazar un proyecto de resolución de carácter tan general que sólo incluye nobles propósitos.
Invitamos a todos los delegados a que esta resolución, que por su contenido no debe presentar dificultades a las Delegaciones sea aprobada en la forma que se nos ha presentado.
M. TRKULJA (Yugoslavia): Mr. Chairman, I am sorry you failed to note my wish to say a couple of sentences by way of introducing this resolution on behalf of the six countries. But since many of my previous colleagues, especially my Indian friend, have very eloquently introduced the general and basic motives that led us, the six countries to submit this resolution, I will try only to add a couple of more specific observations.
We felt strongly that such a resolution which has already become a sort of tradition should be adopted by this conference with the basic aim of epitomizing the central theme, the central feelings expressed in the long debate in this commission as well as in the plenary.
I want to assure you, Mr. Chairman, that in considering the text of the draft resolution we paid full attention to all the views and the concern expressed and we believed and still believe that the text now before you is a very balanced reflection of the views expressed here and in the plenary.
I want only to indicate that in the six operative paragraphs, we wanted to get across a number of messages that we thought were very important and essential for this conference to agree. First of all I do not think that the first paragraph would be controversial to any measurable degree. We are asking all Member Nations to give the highest priority to food and agriculture and to refrain from any measure which would reduce the availability of food supplies.
Then again we are asking all developing countries in particular to pursue the policy of collective self- reliance in food and agriculture.
In the third paragraph we want to spell out in clear terms that to achieve the objective that we agreed on on so many occasions of a four percent minimum growth in food production, international cooperation should be viewed as an essential element. But in the technical, and not only in the technical sense, paragraphs 4 and 5 represent the core of the whole resolution. In paragraph 4 we are strongly urging all nations to undertake immediate steps to ensure the replenishment of the concessionary resources, and I want to underline “concessionary resources”. We wanted further to enlist those international financial institutions that in our wiew should be replenished immediately, that is IFAD, a case already agreed in Commission I; then the UNDP target envisaged and then the FAO special action programmes. We made reference of course to the WFP targets and the need for food aid channeled through international emergency food reserves.
As I said this morning, we feel that there is absolutely nothing new here, that all the things covered by paragraph 4 have been discussed thoroughly in our debate, have been reflected in all plenary speeches and were the subject of so many international meetings and international commitments.
In paragraph 5 we want just to stress again and remind ourselves of the four basic constitutional FAO responsibilities. Finally, we want the Director-General to continue to streamline, as he said, the programmes, staffing and administrative costs and to make improvements in efficiency and economy. In the last part of the same paragraph we want the Director-General to make his best judgment, and I have in mind the world food situation and the prevailing needs as well as constraints.
That is the basic thrust of our resolution and we feel that this commission should adopt such a text and submit it to the Plenary for final adption.
M. M. MUKOLWE (Kenya): I would also like here to take the same stand as the previous speakers and I agree and sympathize with those other members who are finding it difficult to get to support this particular resolution.
We have discussed it in detail during the past days, this is not a new subject as the delegate from Yugoslavia put it, yet our concern is still over deteriorating agricultural production, food being in the forefront, without mentioning some other terms of trade imbalances which are not favourable to the countries that draw their foreign exchange from certain cash crops on international markets. The situation is moving from bad to worse in many developing countries where food deficits are becoming almost the order of the day.
If we ask ourselves what would happen, surely the answer is not anywhere else except here where we are all concerned with food production and where we have taken all this time to discuss it. First and foremost comes enhancing the operation of this very vital organisation, the FAO, to which we belong and which is concerned with food production, and the removal of hunger, malnutrition and poverty. Surely it cannot be only a slogan but it should be among its family members so that mankind as a whole can benefit here.
If again we implement or follow up the WCARRD recommendations, in addition to increased food production and other related fields such as energy, strengthening of national agricultural research, transport technology to the rural poor, nutrition, protection of the environment as other agencies have already discussed or mentioned here, whatever their problems in their own bodies, this is a very important area that we should support.
Furthermore, recently we had very important summits which have already been mentioned by the Heads of State at Ottawa, Cancún, Paris, Lagos, all supporting food production. Surely if we have to make it a reality - and we are all here - it is better that we impress this on people and decide on the course to support the very modest budget of the Director-General for the coming biennium.
The task before us is formidable so it is only for us to cooperate to make it a reality if we mean business.
Mme F. LARBI (Tunisie): Ma délégation ne peut s’empêcher de faire part de son étonnement devant la réticence manifestée par certains délègués quant à l’examen et l’adoption de la résolution qui nous est soumise. Elle est d’autant plus surprise que le problème qui nous concerne a toujours fait l’objet d’une avis unanime, l’accroissement des ressources pour la production alimentaire et le développement agricole a toujours été au centre des débats de nos réunions. Il est unanimement reconnu qu’il est nécessaire de répondre à ces préoccupations en augmentant et diversifiant les crédits destines à l’alimentation et à l’agriculture.
Il n’y a, dans cette résolution, pas un seul aspect qui n’ait été débattu dans l’une ou l’autre commission, et dans tous les cas ou presque, il a été accepté au moins par consensus. Les idées ne sont pas nouvelles et les notions sont familieres à tous les délègués. En réalité, cette résolution ne fait que regrouper, sous un même chapeau, divers éléments qui ont été discutés séparément par d’autres comités. Aussi, ne peuvent-ils constituer pour les délégués une nouveauté qui nécessite des mois d’étude approfondie à l’avance et des débats interminables.
En un mot, cette résolution rafraîchit les mémoires et nous rappelle les priorités et les nécessités dont nous avons convenu auparavant dans d’autres réunions. Cette résolution ne fait qu’insister sur la nécessité de mettre en oeuvre les mesures qui ont obtenu notre consensus à plus d’une reprise et qui incombent tant aux pays en développement qu’aux pays développés.
Aussi, ma délégation demeure-t-elle perplexe devant l’évocation de certaines difficultés que rencontrent certains délègués pour l’adoption de cette résolution.
A la lumière de ce qui précède, ma délégation ne peut s’empêcher d’appuyer sans réserve le projet de résolution qui nous est présenté, et ce, tout en lançant un appel aux autres pays pour qu’ils considèrent ce texte avec compréhension et objectivité.
T. MIRCEA (Roumanie): Ma délégation aimerait adresser ses félicitations aux délégations qui ont pris l’initiative de proposer une telle résolution. Notre avis coincide avec l’avis de beaucoup de pays en voie de développement. En effet, ce projet de résolution incorpore certaines idées essentielles qui ont été discutées aussi bien en séance plénière que dans les commissions. Il nous semble également que la manière dont ces idées sont incorporées dans le texte le rend très équilibré.
Nous voulons surtout exprimer notre satisfaction de voir que l’on a souligné l’effort propre de chaque pays en développement, la coopération horizontale entre pays en voie de développement ainsi que la nécessité d’oeuvrer avec l’appui international pour aider les efforts des pays en voie de développement.
Nous sommes très satisfaits que l’on ait souligné une fois de plus le rôle très important qu’à joué et que peut jouer encore notre Organisation pour la mise en place pratique de ces buts essentiels, non seulement dans le domaine de l’agriculture et de l’alimentation mais dans les relations internationales en général.
M. ARAFAH (Jordan) (Original language Arabic): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. First of all I will try briefly to comment on this resolution. My delegation thanks the group of countries who submitted this resolution, which is balanced. It also provides a practical and realistic solution to our problems by implementing our principals and our criteria insofar as food production is concerned. Therefore my delegation appeals to all countries to support it.
Sra. Dña. A. CAVERO (España): Mi delegación apoya esta resolución, pues como ha dicho el delegado de Yugoslavia, este proyecto de resolución es ya casi una tradición, y pensamos que el texto es una
expresión de opiniones emitidas en esta Organización e incluso en otros foros y vértices internacionales como Ottawa, París, y recientemente Cancún. Por esto, pedimos que esta Comisión adopte pues este texto para ser presentado a la Plenaria.
WANG SHOU RU (China) (Original language Chinese): The Chinese delegation is of the view that the draft resolution on the resources for food production and agricultural development reflects the general economic situation facing the international community, and particularly the challenges we are facing in the field of food and agriculture. As was pointed out by the delegate of Yugoslavia, the draft resolution contains some requests and appeals to the Member States and international community as well as to the FAO, which were touched upon by our discussions on our previous agenda items. Therefore, the Chinese delegation supports this draft resolution and commends it to the Conference for its adoption.
T. AHMED (Pakistan): May I with your permission convey my deepest gratitude and appreciation to all my friends who so whole-heartedly, warmly and most emphatically supported the draft resolution, because my country with India, Lebanon, Indonesia, Sudan and Yugoslavia, is the co-sponsor of this resolution.
Mr. Chairman, we think this is a very balanced resolution which takes into consideration most of the points of view expressed not only during this Conference but on other international fora, including the summit conferences like Ottawa, Cancun and Melbourne. My country has been consistently of the view, and we have expressed this on all platforms, that developing countries have to stand on their own feet, become self-reliant, and strive in this direction, gear their policies in the field of agriculture and food in such a manner that they do become self-reliant in a very short period. Mr. Chairman the Resolution precisely reflects this point of view, and it also reflects the point of view, to which we subscribe, that the administrative costs, the staffing efficiency of the FAO, should be enhanced as far as possible so that the money available for agricultural development and combating malnutrition and hunger with all the international organizations is spent most effectively.
We share the bewilderment and surprise of the distinguished delegate from Tunisia that how is it possible that such resolution which we think, and which most of the delegates think, is so balanced, and reflects the opinion of most of the countries which have been expressed at different forums, and on different platforms, should cause any concern or discomfort to any delegate from any country. We think we have gathered here, and we have been spending this two or three weeks here simply in an effort to fight against malnutrition and hunger all over the world. If we want to do this we should have no hesitation in supporting this resolution, going along with this. I only want to briefly say that my country, which co-sponsored this resolution, wholeheartedly supports it and appreciates the words of support expressed by all the delegates for this resolution. I have so far not heard any word of resistance or discomfort with this resolution, so may I suggest, Mr. Chairman, that you may like to end the debate at this level and then say the resolution has been adopted by Commission II, and it goes to the Plenary in this context, unless there is some word pronounced of objection to it, which we have not heard so far.
P. OLMOS MORALES (Uruguay): Mi delegación comparte el criterio de las delegaciones preopinantes en cuanto a su apoyo a la resolución sobre recursos para la producción alimentaria y el desarrollo agrícola. Nuestro apoyo se basa en que constituye una valiosa síntesis de todos los aspectos generales que se se han analizado en esta Conferencia, tanto en lo que se refiere al desarrollo agrícola como a los problemas de la malnutrición.
Desde este punto de vista, se han sintetizado, en esta resolución, los distintos aspectos en lo que tiene que ver con la prioridad a nivel de cada uno de los Estados, particularmente el enfoque de los países en desarrollo, y por otra parte, la consecución efectiva de los aspectos en cuanto a financiamiento que evidentemente requieren el alcance de las metas, que en distintas instancias en el concierto internacional ha existido consenso entre los distintos países. Por otra parte, deseamos recalcar lo concerniente a la cooperación internacional la cual tiene una debida cabida dentro de este texto. Finalmente, también se ha tenido en cuenta y se ha exhortado a procurar el máximo de simplificación de programas y reducción de costos, con el fin justamente de que los fondos destinados a nivel internacional propendan màs efectivamente al desarrollo agrícola y a un efectivo enfrentamiento de los problemas de la malnutrición en el mundo.
Por todos estos elementos, mi delegación considera que esta resolución constituye la piedra angular de este período de sesiones, y además reafirma en su Artículo V los objetivos generales de nuestra Organización.
J.O. ALABI (Nigeria): From what I have heard so far I have not heard any word of dissent, and this makes me very happy that the resolution will be carried. My delegation does not think there should be any problem with support for this resolution since the past two weeks we have said many words about the urgent need to provide adequate food production to ensure the elimination of hunger and malnutrition from the world. In the recent past there have been several international meetings urging that adequate resources should be provided for food production. The resolution is a good one, Mr. Chairman. I need not repeat the points made by many speakers in support of the resolution in view of the time constraints. We had better support this resolution, Mr. Chairman, and we request this Commission to recommend the adoption to the Conference.
K. CHOUERI (Liban) (Langue originale arabe): La délégation de mon pays est coauteur de ce projet de résolution. De nombreux arguments nous ont amenés à présenter ce projet de résolution, et l’honorable délégué de Yougoslavie a déjà évoqué toutes ces raisons. Ce projet de résolution n’apporte rien de nouveau, ni de révolutionnaire, qui puisse susciter des interrogations ou des réticences. Les délégations ont discuté toutes les questions mentionnées dans ce projet de résolution et la majorité écrasante des pays membres a appuyé les questions qui ont été discutées pendant cette Conférence.
En outre, les procédures qui ont été suivies pour vous soumettre ce projet de résolution sont tout à fait régulières et représentent le minimum que nous puissions demander pour assurer les ressources nécessaires pour la production alimentaire et le développement agricole. C’est là quelque chose de très important pour lutter contre la faim, la pauvreté et la malnutrition dans les pays en développement.
Le projet de résolution parle de questions que nous connaissons tous, qui ne doivent pas susciter des réserves de la part de certains d’entre nous.
Dans le premier paragraphe, on demande de développer l’agriculture et la production alimentaire, et dans le deuxième paragraphe il est question de l’autosuffisance. Ce projet fait appel à la coopération Internationale.
Pensez-vous que toutes ces questions méritent d’être rejetées? Nous ne le pensons pas. C’est la raison pour laquelle la délégation de mon pays appuie ce projet de résolution et invite tous les pays membres à l’approuver, étant donné que ce projet n’a que des aspects positifs qui servent les intérêts des pays en développement.
A.G. NGONGI NAMANG (Cameroon): There is no need to go into any long discussion, since I think that the consensus is that the resolution is well balanced, is broad, it covers all the points of view we have been discussing throughout the Conference. There is no doubt that the Conference should get together for collective self-reliance so that the developing countries must give more emphasis on food production and that the Director-General should exercise all necessary matters to streamline the administration and create more efficient use of the Organization. I think, Mr. Chairman, there will be no need to prolong the debate much longer. If you could, probably after a few more interventions, call for the adoption of this resolution, we would appreciate it very much.
A. RODRIGUES PIRES (Cap-Vert): Je serai très bref, étant donné que le délégué du Cameroun a parlé avant moi. Nous ne devons pas perdre de temps. Le texte de cette résolution constitue la clef du problème, et nous demandons aux délégations ici présentes d’appuyer cette résolution.
Sra. Doña L. ELIZONDO C. (Nicaragua): Solamente una brevísima intervención para expresar nuestro total apoyo al proyecto de Resolución. Nuestra delegación se une a lo expresado por otros países para que este texto sea adoptado como una resolución de esta Conferencia.
B.E. PHIRI (Zambia): As you have noted, Mr. Chairman, the members of the Group of 77 have all spoken in favour of this resolution. When the draft was made by our colleagues, they showed it to us. We discussed the resolution, and the whole Group supports it. We were surprised this morning that some
delegates thought there was material in this resolution which called for consultation with their home governments. All that is said here is something that has been said in a number of fora, in a number of meetings. It is merely a repetition of what we have agreed upon in the past. Seriously speaking, we really do not understand those who think they should consult their home governments. What is there to consult the government about? Some of the things here have been said by those particular governments, and it is surprising that anyone would go back to them to say, “Do you think we should say this in Commission II?”
We see that possibly those who want to consult their governments are considering operative paragraph 4 because it urges Member Nations to take immediate steps, and some proposal for amendment has been made to change it to say that we should take necessary steps. While taking necessary steps is not something that we could object to, the trouble is that necessary steps can be taken today or they can be taken in 10 years’ time. The Group of 77 feels that we should take immediate steps to begin to implement some of the things that we have talked of for a long time in the past. It is high time that we began to take action, and we think action should be taken.
Without wasting much time, I wish to affirm that the Group of 77 is fully behind this resolution.
AMIDJONO MARTOSUWIRYO (Indonesia): My delegation is convinced that agricultural developments aimed at increasing food production and agricultural commodities, particularly in food-deficient countries, are the right efforts and the shortest way to cope with the problem of hunger and malnutrition. Self-reliance must be the basis of all efforts and activities and policies pursued by developing countries, otherwise they never achieve real independence. It is true that to some extent they need support from international organizations, from countries who are economically in a better position in terms of funds and expertise.
In this context I wish to refer to paragraph 3, particularly line 1 which states that self-reliance can only be achieved through fuller international cooperation. That seems to my delegation a little misleading. In this context I would suggest that the word “acquired” should be used.
Except for this amendment, my delegation fully supports the entire resolution since it covers many points which are of paramount importance in strengthening policies and actions in the development of food and agriculture, strengthening capabilities of international funding institutions like IFAD, recognizing that FAO is an indispensable instrument of international cooperation in the efforts of the international community to overcome hunger and malnutrition, and increasing or promoting cooperation among developing countries.
ABUL ARSAN (Bangladesh): In view of the comments made by the various distinguished delegates supporting the resolution, I shall be very brief.
First of all, I should think that this is a very balanced resolution. On the one hand, it speaks in terms of the priority that agriculture should get, a point which has been endorsed by several international agencies, the different conferences recently held, and, more important, this Conference of FAO itself. We should be failing in our resolve if we did not reflect what has been very forcefully made out by a very large number of delegations in the general statements and elsewhere that agriculture should be given first priority; that in order to attain the objective of becoming self-sufficient the developing countries need to be supported both by the international organizations and the country concerned. Therefore, I say that we should be failing in our responsibility if we did not reflect that concern which this Conference itself has articulated, and the only way we can do that is by giving full support to this resolution.
Frankly speaking, I do not see any ground on which any reservation can be made on the draft as it is. Personally, I should have thought that there was even scope for strengthening the resolution.
NGA MA MAPELA (Zaïre): Nous aimerions nous aussi accorder notre plein appui à ce projet de résolution. Comme d’autres délégués l’ont si bien dit, cette résolution ne fait que reprendre le thème qui fait l’objet d’accords au niveau international. En effet, que ce soit dans la résolution 6/19 que notre Conférence avait adoptée lors de sa vingtième session ou que ce soit dans les recommandations de Cancún ou d’Ottawa, tous nous avons toujours reconnu et souligné la nécessité d’augmenter la production alimentaire et agricole. Encore une fois nous donnons notre plein appui à cette résolution et nous ne pensons qu’on devrait, à cette heure tardive, procéder à des amendements sur ce texte.
J.L.F. BUIST (United Kingdom): Thank you, first of all, Mr. Chairman, for giving me the floor, since, when I intervened in the discussion earlier this morning, I really did so primarily on the question of procedure. The Zambian delegate told us that he himself and many of his colleagues had had the advantage of seeing this text in the making, so to speak, and it almost inclined me to wish that my delegation belonged to the Group of 77 so that I could have had the advantage equally of seeing it at an earlier stage. However, as you know, we did not get it until this morning, and I think it was quite natural that we should therefore take a rather close look at it to see what it said. Indeed, I think it would have been very helpful, if, when the resolution was in the making, it could have been discussed with us or shown to us in some way, so that, as one of my colleagues said earlier, we did not find ourselves in the danger of starting a very long debate at the eleventh hour and the fifty-ninth minute of our work.
My delegation would very much like to join in supporting a resolution of this kind. As the Yugoslav delegate has reminded us, it is to some extent traditional to have such a text which is put forward, and I have looked at the one which was passed in 1979, though I am bound to say, in deference to him, that I think it is not quite the same as the one we have in front of us now. That in itself indicates, of course, that the text which has now been prepared is shaped to take account of new situations and new developments, and that again requires us to look rather carefully at it to make sure that it responds properly to those developments.
I listened with the deepest attention to the interventions of others, particularly the eloquent presentation by the Indian delegation and what was said by the delegation of Kenya who made some very thoughtful remarks recalling to us the very real state of affairs in the world outside. We are glad that there is a universal desire such as was expressed by the distinguished delegate for Pakistan that the text should be properly balanced. That is something we would equally endorse. We would also agree with the view of the Zambian delegation that the text should reflect what had already been agreed upon.
I think those points are extremely fair and, if they are observed, there seems to me no difficulty in our arriving at a fairly speedy conclusion to this discussion.
As to the substance of the text itself, I should like to make one advance remark of general importance which relates to the question of matters covered or to be covered in other resolutions by this conference.
This resolution itself overlaps with texts or decisions which will separately be put to the conference for adoption. I give as an example the replenishment of IFAD, which is mentioned in paragraph 4. Another example is the budget question, which was mentioned by Kenya. We fully understand the views of most countries here on this point but, since there is to be a separate decision on that, it does not seem to us either wise or satisfactory to include overlapping matter in this particular text.
That relates, of course, not only to one or two points in the preliminary recitals, but also to some extent to paragraphs 5 and 6 of the resolution presented to us in draft.
More generally, it is the view of the majority of countries here, which, as we have made clear in earlier discussion, we respect but do not share, that the FAO is not to be compared with orthodox multilateral aid agencies or to be examined in value against those agencies in terms of the developmental orientation in a number of different ways. That view was taken quite strongly in earlier discussion by some of those delegations who have now sponsored this resolution. I find that the language which comes to us sits rather oddly when it talks of these points, given those previous discussions, which are of course recorded elsewhere in the papers we have to consider.
I think it would be an unhappy event if this sort of inclusion of other matter obliged us to bring forward as a result other sorts of considerations which perhaps ought to be included in any resolution because they reflected the course of discussion so far.
That is a general point which I am making. It is not a point on which I wish to go over old ground or re-open anything which has already been exhaustively discussed in this Commission.
It does behove us to take into account these points when we are considering a text, and a text which we certainly wish that all member nations represented here be able to subscribe to.
I would now turn to the text itself and explain why, although in general, we go along with it, as usual, as we say in English, the devil is in the detail. Everyone is agreeable, I think, to the general plea which has been made very forcefully by many members in this room during the discussion so far that there should be a resolution, for the wider reasons they have given.
Let us look, however, at some of the points at which we might need to make some adaptation in order to take account of the views actually expressed. If we look, for instance, at the recitals in the preamble, the seventh contains a thought which certainly has not been extensively - let me say, unanimously -shared, to the extent of its being possible to be represented in consensus form. I think there are ways of rephrasing that recital in such a way as to overcome what appears to be a difficulty there.
If we look at the tenth recital, the last one, again there are ways in which I am sure these could be reformulated without raising the difficulty I mentioned earlier.
On the third operative paragraph, I believe that the Indonesian delegation made an excellent point. It seems paradoxical to argue that greater self-reliance involves less self-reliance, and I feel sure that some minor changes to that paragraph - perhaps on the lines he proposed - could see us through any difficulty there.
In paragraph four, this text takes up a number of points which we have already discussed and which are, to some extent, reflected in the draft records of our earlier discussions. I believe that it would be fair, right and necessary, if I can adopt a word which again, I think, the Indonesian delegation used, to include references to all these, organs of multilateral financing except the International Fund for Agricultural Development, for the reasons I have given.
I say that, if I can make a remark off the record, particularly because I am responsible for advising on policy towards all these institutions in my own country and I think it is right that they should be given their proper weight.
At the same time, as some delegates will realize, this does not tell the whole story, nor does it necessarily put the formulation in a way which, I believe, we could all accept. So think we shall have to do some work on that paragraph.
Then we come to the fifth and sixth. With regard to the fifth operative paragraph, I have already referred to possible problems of overlap there. As far as the sixth is concerned, we are glad to see this paragraph but in one sense I do not believe that it should be here at all, any more than 5, for the reason I gave earlier. If it is to stay, I believe we shall have to attempt to adapt it somewhat in order to reflect the balance of the discussion in relation to the further efforts which ought to be made, and, as far as the latter part of the paragraph is concerned, to accord more closely with what I believe is the usual procedure in the Organisation. If I may make what is almost a frivolous remark, it seems rather strange to invite the Director-General to use “his best judgment”. I am quite sure that no one would dream of his doing anything else when putting forward the budget, and it almost casts a shadow on that judgment to include those words. However, I believe we should reflect first on whether paragraphs of this kind ought to be in at all. Let us focus this on where it is really needed, upon the international aid agencies, and let us come up with a text that can be unanimously adopted by acclamation by the Conference.
CHAIRMAN: With reference to your last remark, I think your comments have been carefully noted.
We have had so far 21 speakers. Apart from the UK, one has made suggestions as to the text, the delegate from Indonesia. The others have made no suggestions for change at all. I feel I ought to say this as your Chairman, looking at the proceedings objectively.
F. DE MENEZES (Sao Tomé-et-Principe): Je vous remercie, Monsieur le Président, de me donner la parole, même s’il est déjà tard, et malgré que nous ayons compris qu’il y avait un consensus pour l’adoption de la résolution qui nous est soumise. Puisqu’il y a un consensus, la délégation de Sao Tomé-et-Principe veut se joindre à ce consensus et demande que cette résolution soit immédiatement adoptée telle qu’elle nous est présentée.
Pour terminer, nous voudrions attirer l’attention de cette commission sur le fait qu’à la réunion de Cancún tous les pays participants se sont prononcés à l’unanimité pour l’agriculture, l’alimentation et le développement rural et, si notre mémoire n’est pas défaillante, le Président des Etats-Unis et le Premier ministre du Royaume-Uni y étaient présents.
J. ROWAN (Ireland): When I intruded this morning and asked that you should give us time to consider this particular resolution, I did so without consideration of any other delegation. I have not seen anything, except what you told me on Friday evening, that the resolution was; available; it came to me only when I arrived here to sit in this chair. Any comment I made at that time, therefore, was without reference to anyone else and in pursuance of the function I bear here, to see that whatever resolutions are carried through here conform with the wishes of my government.
With that, I want to say that our sentiments fully coincide with the resolution, but, as was mentioned by the delegate of the United Kingdom, there are details within it. The one that immediately appears to me, without going much further, is in paragraph 1, where you call for specific action: there is at the end a suggestion “to refrain from reducing the availability of food supplies for the poorest sections of the world’s population.”‘ Surely we as individuals know that very often it is not governments that do not produce food, it is the farmers. I am only thinking in the context that our production of food this year was lower. Did we do it because, in fact, we did not give to the less well off? Now We are an exporting country. So these are factors.
Clearly, there are good intentions in this. I think the suggestions that came from the delegate of the United Kingdom, if they were given some consideration, could certainly make the resolution much more acceptable in the context of the times we are in. I certainly would not like it to go abroad that there is any feeling within it that we do not want FAO to continue to do all that is possible within our capacity to ensure that the poor of the world do not suffer.
A. TRAORE (Guinée): Pour notre délégation, le projet de résolution qui nous est soumis Sanscrit dans la ligne des points de vue exprimés par de nombreuses Conferences internationales et aussi par la Conférence plénière de la FAO. Aussi, sommes-nous surpris de la reserve que certaines délégations manifestent vis-à-vis de ce projet. Pour sa part, mon pays le trouve bien équilibré et l’appuie fermement.
F. ANBOOL (Yemen, People’s Democratic Republic of) (original language Arabic): In brief, I would like to thank the delegations who submitted this draft resolution about the allocation of resources for food production and agricultural development. We are for the unanimous adoption of this draft resolution.
CHAIRMAN: Wé have so far had this afternoon 25 speakers; I have 15 more on my list. Of these 25, 24 support the resolution. Perhaps we could speed up the debate by expressing this support concisely. Those who have amendments to suggest could perhaps spell them out concisely too.
A. HEZIL (Algérie): Afin d’éviter des répétitions et de permettre à nos travaux d’avancer, je serai très bref.
J’appuie la déclaration du délégué de la Yougoslavie ainsi que celles de beaucoup d’autres délégués. Je ne répéterai donc pas toutes les raisons de notre appui à ce texte, mais je voudrais apporter le soutien total de ma délégation au présent projet de résolution.
M. A. AZAMI (Afghanistan): In order to be brief and not repeat what has already been said by other distinguished delegates, I would like to state that my delegation fully supports the adoption of the draft resolution before us. This resolution helps the development of food and agricultural production in the fight against hunger and malnutrition throughout the world.
Y. KUROKOCHI (Japan): The position of my delegation has not changed very much from this morning when we had a preliminary discussion on this draft resolution. Since then, my delegation has had time to study this draft and we have found that there are several points on which we need some specific instruction from my government. Following your suggestion that at the Plenary any delegation can make a statement of reservation on specific points of the resolution, I should like to put it on record that we will follow your suggestion. Perhaps I should mention there is a time difference of 8 hours between Tokyo and here and we have not so far been in a position to receive specific instructions. We would like, therefore, to reserve the right to make additional comments at the Plenary.
M. SAMBA (Congo): Ma délégation est étonnée de constater que certaines délégations ici présentes suggèrent de longs débats sur une résolution aussi claire et aussi juste que celle qui nous est soumise. Si nous sommes d’accord sur le fond, pourquoi nous attarderions-nous sur des détails. Nous estimons, pour notre part, que le texte qui nous est présenté comporte des recommandations concrètes, équilibrées, qui ne devraient entraîner aucune observation de la part des délégations ici réunies. Par conséquent, nous invitons l’ensemble des délégués à adopter par consensus cette proposition.
P. ROSENEGGER (Austria) (original language German): Thank you very much Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I would like to obey your instructions and be very brief. The text we have before us here, this draft resolution, in our view is very much in line with the prevailing situation and logically dovetails with the spirit, the final document of Ottawa, Cancím, and other conferences.
Austria already in its statement number 14 of the agenda of Commission II has already moved along these lines, and I just wish to recall that in 1979, Resolution 6/79, we also supported a similar text and also at the World Food Conference we also adopted a text which was very compatible with these articles. The urging on the force to reactivate IFAD and to increase the pledges to UNDP, WFP and IEF and item 5 of the resolution, where we again reaffirmed the special position and the importance of the Food and Agriculture Organization in the fight against hunger and malnutrition. All these things our Delegation can support and endorse without further ado.
I. MAAZOU (Niger): Ayant entendu votre appel, Monsieur le Président, nous serons très brefs. Je vous demande simplement d’ajouter une voix de plus à votre décompte de ceux qui appuient sans réserve le présent projet de résolution.
D. R. SHARMA (Nepal): I shall be very brief. Mr. Chairman, coming from a developing country which is predominantly an agricultural one, we appeal that the development of agriculture in a country like ours is a dire, essential and true step towards the efforts in the development of the country.
Mr. Chairman, my delegation feels that the resolution is very timely and well thought of. Not taking up the time to repeat the statements already made by distinguished delegates, I would like to mention that my delegation fully supports the resolution put before us.
G. IJIGU (Ethiopia): Mr. Chairman, my Delegation, without going into any details, wishes to add another voice of support to this Resolution. In fact, my Minister of Agriculture in his speech in the Plenary had called for such a support for the Director-General’s Proposed Programme of Work and Budget which at this time means supporting the Resolution before us.
Mr. Chairman with paramount importance on and emphasis laid on eradicating hunger and so on, without any let up, the Delegation of Socialist Ethiopia gives its firm support to the Resolution as presented. On the other hand, my Delegation wishes to call your attention to the call made earlier on that the Resolution has more support to it than opposition, so we may proceed for the adoption of the Resolution by consensus. Consequently any opponents must either provide an alternative or accept the verdict of the majority, otherwise a situation similar to what happened to the idea of forming genetic resources banks which is still going back and forth between the commission floor and some redrafting session might happen again.
H. CARANDANG (Philippines): Mr. Chairman, the Philippines Delegation can agree generally with the Resolution. We believe that high priority should be given to food and agriculture, and from the President of the Philippines as already seen at the Cancím Summit in Mexico, we believe that paragraphs 2 and 3 are interconnected. Self reliance is only valid if it is supported by external aid and technical assistance. We believe we have expressed our support for the replenishment of IFAD, UNDP, IEFR and the World Food Programme elsewhere.
With regard to operative paragraph number 5 we generally agree with the priorities indicated here, although the Philippines Delegation has indicated its priority through the role of FAO as a mechanism of transfer for technology. The role of FAO as an international extension mechanism should become our first priority. FAO has a unique potential as a global extension mechanism for transferring technology that should boost food production from all international research institutes. Likewise FAO has all the resources and the technical personnel and machinery to link up the research resources of international research centres with the developing countries of the world.
We have no problems with regard to paragraph number 6 and so Mr. Chairman, we can generally agree with this Resolution.
A. E. GUROFF (United States of America): First of all I would like to recall to this group that the U.S. intervened this morning and identified a series of difficulties with this Resolution which we arrived at without consultation, and I might just add that they seem in great measure to overlap with those that were so well articulated by the United Kingdom delegate.
At the risk of perhaps surprising any number of delegations here who seem quite easily surprised by decisions which are really not a secret, the U.S. position has not changed since this morning. We have the same difficulties and we really do not think it will be useful to sit through another seemingly endless number of interventions telling us how surprising our position is, it isn’t bringing us together. I think the procedure, which as I understand you have identified for us to deal with this is simply to hear us out tonight and then hear us out again tomorrow if we are still interested in talking, worries me greatly that we should just again be told how surprised we all are, and I suppose I could say how surprised I am that others are surprised and we wouldn’t go very far.
I think there are two courses we should consider. One would be if in fact there are those that find some use in adopting a “consensus resolution” that clearly has no consensus. We have no difficulty with that contradiction but we would then certainly be prepared to enter into some detail all the difficulties we have with that consensus, and I expect the reservations will be longer than the resolution. The alternative is, once again in the spirit of compromise to refer this to a Contact Group of those who have difficulty and are interested in trying to pull this together into something we can all agree to, and if we do take this route I would urge that it be first thing tomorrow morning. I think we are overloaded already for tonight but I would propose the later route, because the U.S. would prefer not to have to reserve on something. Vie find that serves nobody’s purpose so we would suggest early tomorrow morning a Contact Group come together and try and sort out their difficulties, and the U.S. would be prepared to participate in such a group.
M. PHOOFOLO (Lesotho): There has been adequate support for the Resolution and yet no very clear objection to the substance of the Resolution. Therefore we do not wish to take any more time but to support this Resolution.
DATUK AHMAD YUNUS (Malaysia): I only wish to say that the Malaysian Delegation would like to express its support for the Resolution as we consider it most important for agricultural development.
H. WETZEL (Germany, Federal Republic of) (original language German): Unfortunately at the beginning of my statement I have to refer briefly to a matter of procedure. This document LIM/31 we were presented with for the very first time this morning. If we, as a member state of this Organization, have to assume the joint responsibility for a text we must be given an opportunity for indepth scrutinity of such a text, and, wherever necessary, and if necessary, check and get our instructions from back home. Ultimately, this resolution after its adoption by the FAO Conference will be submitted to the decision making bodies of other organizations where my Government is also represented and where again they have their responsibility vis-à-vis the international community which they fulfill to the best of their powers, as for instance the governing council of the World Bank of the UNDP to just mention two fora.
The Honourable Delegate of India stated that the Resolution was the quintessence of the discussions which were held in the course of this Conference, and the Honourable Delegate of Tunisia pointed out that the individual items and items of this Resolution had at least been the subject of consensus in the course of this Conference. It is my feeling Mr. Chairman, that those who have followed this debate or studied the verbatim records carefully will know that this is not 100 percent the case. Everyone knows what margin of opinion are contained in consensus opinions, and after my first rapid perusal of this tentative draft I want to say that a number of points contained in this text are points which we have had problems with consensus-wise in the debate, and we who are faced with this draft resolution have problems with formulation and with interpretation and scope of interpretation.
This means that we will have to plunge into the details of the text before we can approve the resolution. It appears to me that it is not the task of this Commission to do the job of a drafting or contact group. Moreover, that would have been unnecessary if the resolution had been presented in connection with the original item on the agenda, as was originally intended.
So I have the following proposal. After a general discussion of this draft this afternoon in Commission II, a drafting or contact group should be convened, the members of which will be appointed by our commission, and after that we adjourn. The delegate of Yugoslavia in his statement referred to a tradition and to a similar resolution of the 20th Conference. If my memory is correct, at the 20th Conference we had ample time to discuss Resolution 6 and I believe there was such a thing as a contact group also. I move that we do not deviate from this excellent tradition.
CHAIRMAN: I would like to repeat that I saw the resolution in the present text this morning. I was informed that the resolution would be coming late on Friday evening and I have to accept the fact that tomorrow we have to approve the report. I am very sorry but we have to stick to the timetable and I cannot see a situation where the Conference is prolonged simply because Commission II has not come to the end of its work. So far we have had 38 speakers, all 38 pronounce themselves very clearly on what they felt about the resolution. Four speakers presented their reservations on the draft resolutions and 34 accepted it. As Chairman of the Commission, I have to respect that view of the majority of Commission II.
R.C. ELARD (Syria) (original language Arabic): I would like to declare that our delegation supports the draft resolution. Since this debate has been a lengthy one, I would like to concentrate on three subjects. First, through the international meetings that have been taking place in these last years the problem of malnutrition - from which hundreds of millions of people suffer - has been one of the main items of discussion of the international community. Secondly, FAO is considered the only organisation of the UN family which is competent to carry out successfully the struggle against hunger and malnutrition. Thirdly, in these previous months there have been various meetings of which we would like to mention The Brandt and Commissions, the adoption of the Third international Development Strategy, the Ottawa Summit and the Conference of the Least Developed Countries. So it isystrange that some countries are reserving their position when after all they were present in Cancún at a meeting at which 22 heads of state were present, heads of state who agreed that hunger is to be conceded as the most urgent problem that needs financial and technical support.
We do not want to go into the details, but we wonder how can there be such contradiction in the policies of some countries that attended those international meetings. That is why we propose to accept this draft resolution unanimously.
D. BETI (Suisse) (Langue originale allemande): Ma délégation ne voudrait pas prolonger la discussion étant donné l’heure fort avancée. Nous présenterons très brièvement la position de notre délégation.
En ce qui concerne ce projet de résolution, ma délégation se trouve devant un dilemme. D’une part, nous trouvons que la résolution est assez bien équilibrée. Elle répète d’ailleurs ce qui a déjà étë dit, elle n’apporte pas grand chose de nouveau. Pour cette raison, nous n’aurions pas de difficulté à lui donner notre accord. Mais d’autre part, nous estimons que de légères modifications de cette résolution ne lui feraient pas de tort. Il s’agirait d’amendements qui pourraient très facilement être acceptés par toutes les délégations. Ces modifications pourraient rendre cette résolution plus conforme à la réalité des choses et tiendraient mieux compte des possibilités des Etats Membres. De cette manière, la résolution pourrait devenir un instrument véritablement utile.
Ma délégation, dans l’état actuel de la discussion, n’a pas de modifications précises à proposer. Cependant, elle pourrait donner son accord à un certain nombre de modifications déjà proposées, par exemple par l’Indonésie. C’est la raison pour laquelle cette Commission pourrait s’attaquer tout de suite à la discussion des différentes modifications qui ont dëjà été avancées. Nous pourrions également accepter la proposition faite par la délégation de la République fédérale d’Allemagne.
MISS J. Mc QUEEN (Canada): The Canadian delegation fully supports the spirit of this resolution. We believe it is in accord with the statements coming out of the Ottawa, Melbourne and Cancún summits and the LLDC Conference in Paris. We agree with the statement from Cancún that within as brief a period as possible hunger must be eradicated and that this objective is clearly an obligation of the international community and constitutes a first priority both at the national level and in the field of international cooperation. I think we can all agree on that.
However we do have some problems with some of the specific wording, including some of the points raised by the respective delegates of the United Kingdom, but also one or two others. We do feel that solutions can be found without too much difficulty, but is obvious by now that this is far too large a group to act as an editorial committee and we associate ourselves with the representatives of the United States and the Federal Republic of Germany in suggesting that a contact group be formed to work out wording and present it to us for consideration during the day tomorrow. This will enable us to meet the scheduling obligations and at the same time produce a resolution that we can all accept wholeheartedly and without reservation.
F. d’ALMEIDA (Bénin): Ma délégation désire simplement faire savoir qu’elle appuie sans réserve le projet de résolution qui nous est proposé.
S. AIDARA (Sénégal): II se fait tard, je n’ai pas besoin de m’étendre sur les éléments d’une argumentation qui a été très largement développée par beaucoup de délégations qui ont pris la parole avant moi.
Nous pensons que le projet de résolution qui nous est soumis s’inscrit dans le droit fil des résultats et follow up des rencontres au sommat qui ont eu lieu récemment à Ottawa, à Melbourne et surtout à Cancún où les recommandations des Chefs d’Etats des plus grands pays du monde ont mis l’accent sur les problèmes alimentaires et agricoles. A cet égard, vous me permettrez de citer quelques-unes des conclusions de Cancún.
En effet, dans le texte final il est indiqué: “La faim doit être ëliminêe dans des délais aussi brefs que possible. Cet objectif est sans nul doute une obligation pour la Communauté internationale et constitue la première des priorités, à la fois au niveau national et dans le domaine de la coopération internationale”. Plus loin, dans le même texte, il est précisé: “Les pays en développement devront définir et, avec l’aide d’un appui international ample et efficace, mettre en oeuvre des stratégies alimentaires nationales embrassant tout le cycle de la productivité, de la distribution et de la consummation alimentaire”.
Il apparaît donc tout à fait logique, si nous voulons être conséquents avec nous-mêmes et respecter l’esprit de Cancún, de donner à l’agriculture la place qu’elle mérite en la dotant des ressources nécessaires capables d’nsuffler à ce secteur tout le dynamisme dont il a besoin.
Si j’ai pris la parole, c’est donc pour ajouter ma voix à celle des délégations qui ont fermement appuyé le projet de résolution et pour rappeler que les gouvernements, tant à Ottawa, à Melbourne qu’à Cancún, ont décidé de faire du secteur agricole le problème numéro un du développement mondial.
II est donc logique et natural d’accorder les ressources indispensables au développement de l’agriculture et au combat contre la faim.
Plusieurs propositions ont été faites. Certains nous disent qu’il faut poursuivre les négociations au sein du Groupe de contact. D’autres nous disent qu’il faut créer des Comités de rédaction.
Une large majorité s’est dégagée au cours des discussions qui ont eu lieu. II ne m’appartient pas de faire ici le resume de ces débats. Il ne m’appartient pas non plus de prendre la décision. Cette décision vous revient, Monsieur le Président. Ce faisant, je voudrais vous rappeler l’esprit de démocratie qui a toujours caractérisé nos débats.
G. CAMERARIS (CYPRUS): I will not be long. If, indeed, we expect that the shame of hunger, of poverty, and malnutrition, is eventually to be eliminated from the world, the world indeed has no other way but to go along the lines contained in the resolution before us. So I wish to declare, Mr. Chairman, that the Cyprus delegation is in agreement with the content and substance of the draft resolution before us. I urge, therefore, the Commission for its approval.
Sra. Doña M. RUIZ ZAPATA (México): Seré muy breve. Quiero solamente dejar constancia de que México apoya con entusiasmo la Resolución que nos ocupa.
D. NOEL (Grenada): The Grenada delegation wishes to add another voice and give its unreserved support to a resolution we consider worthy of the unanimous support of all countries which have a deep concern about bringing true development to all nations throughout the world.
M.A.M. IBRAHIM (Sudan) (Original language Arabic): Since the delegation of Sudan is one of the delegations that has presented the draft resolution concerning the resources for food production and agricultural development, I simply would like to reiterate the support that my delegation fives to this draft resolution.
M.T. DIARRA (Mali): Si je prends la parole, ce n’est pas pour rappeler ce qu’ont dit les délégations precedentes, c’est simplement pour associer la voix du Mali au soutien de la proposition de résolution qui nous a été soumise.
A. LUTZ (Finland): In order to save the time of this Committee I am speaking on behalf of the Nordic countries, Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden. This draft resolution deals with the resources for development. On such a resolution it is important to attain a consensus, otherwise the effects intended will not be realized. I do not want to go into details of substance of the draft, but rather address the procedure. The suggestion made by the Federal Republic of Germany to discuss the content of this resolution in the contact group is well founded. We think that this is the proper procedure to follow.
M.S. ZEHNI (Lybia) (Original language Arabic): I would simply like to say, Sir, that my delegationwould like to be one of those that supports the draft resolution. I will not go into any detail here, I will not say why we support this draft resolution. I feel it unnecessary to give all the reasons for upporting it. Therefore, I simply would like to say I support the resolution.
J.P. WARNIMONT (Belgique): Je me permets de prendre la parole pour indiquer que ma délégation n’est pas en mesure d’appuyer le projet de résolution qui nous est présenté, notamment pour les raisons évoquées par le délégué du Royaume-Uni. Ma délégation suggère, afin de gagner du temps, de se rallier a la proposition faite par la République fédérale allemande.
Sra. Doña M. IVANKOVICH de AROSEMENA (Panamá): Mi delegación también desea unirse a aquellas delega-ciones que han apoyado este proyecto de résolución. Las razones que me llevan a apoyarlo ya han sido enumeradas por aquellas delegaciones que me han precedido en el uso de la palabra y no quisiéramos repetirlas en aras del tiempo, debido sobre todo a que la misma se justifica por sí sola, ya que persigue la eliminación del hambre y malnutrición y coincide con las recomendaciones emanadas de las reuniones de Melbourne y Cancún.
Mlle. M. MUSSO (France): Je voudrais indiquer que la délégation française partage les préoccupations qui sous-tendent cette résolution, et peut accepter cette résolution sous réserve de quelques légères modifications qui, je le crois, ne devraient pas prêter à beaucoup de controverses.
Ainsi, dans le préambule, nous souhaiterions nous aussi que dans le septième considérant commençant par “Reconnaissant les difficultés économiques” les mots “prévalent largement” soient remplacés par les mots “rendent plus aiguës ces difficultés’’.
Pour ce qui est du dispositif, nous souhaiterions que dans le paragraphe 4 les mots “EXHORTE VIVEMENT les Etats Membres à prendre immédiatement des mesures pour assurer” soient remplacés par les termes “INVITE les Etats Membres à s’efforcer de prendre les mesures nécessaires pour assurer” etc. Nous pensons que cela tiendrait mieux compte des diverses opinions qui ont pu être émises par exemple en ce qui concerne le FIDA et le PNUD.
Pour ce qui est du paragraphe 5, nous souhaiterions qu’il soit fait une distinction entre le programme ordinaire et les activités extra-budgétaires. En effet, les activités extra-budgétaires sont financées sur une base volontaire, et il ne nous paraît pas tout à fait conforme à la réalité d’indiquer une nécessité d’assurer des ressources adéquates sur des fonds extra-budgétaires, puisque par essence les pays contributeurs peuvent estimer qu’il est nécessaire, ou au contraire pas nécessaire, d’appuyer tel ou, tel programme.
Enfin nous souhaiterions que, pour tenir compte des voeux exprimés par ma délégation mais aussi partagés, je le sais, par d’autres délégations, il soit ajouté, dans le paragraphe 6, qu’avant de presenter ses propositions definitives pour le prochain biennium, le Directeur general veuille bien étudier les diverses possibilités avec les Etats Membres, afin qu’il puisse’ se faire une appréciation la plus exacte possible de la situation de l’agriculture mondiale, des besoins des Etats Membres, mais aussi de leurs difficultés et de leurs limites.
Nous pensons qu’il est indispensable que cette résolution si importante recueille le consensus de tous les délêgués, aussi pensons-nous que c’est une proposition qui justifie qu’un groupe de contact puisse être forme afin de trouver une solution aux problèmes qui se posent encore, et je suis sure qu’ils pourront être résolus.
J. SONNEVELD (Netherlands): We hare heard many delegates supporting the text of the present Resolution. However, there is quite a number of the Delegations who have indicated they believe there is a possibility to have a consensus on a text of a Resolution. If this is really a possibility I think we should not miss this opportunity. There is a large majority for the present text, that is a good result. There might be a possibility for a consensus. That would be a better result. I think we should work for the better result.
CHAIRMAN: Distinguished Delegate of the Netherlands, can you make a concrete suggestion for the better result, please?
J. SONNEVELD (Netherlands): Mr. Chairman, we have small suggestions for change in the text. Some are covered by the French Delegation, for instance, but to be more specific we support the suggestion made by the German Delegation.
H.K. CHHETRI (Bhutan): Briefly we feel the Resolution before us is a noble one, noble indeed as it concerns the well-being of the poorest section of the world population. This resolution also reflects in a well-balanced manner the points discussed in the past weeks. We, therefore, fully support the draft resolution.
P. VANDOR (Hungary): I am sorry to be asking for the floor at this late stage, but I am a one-man delegation and during the day I had to attend the Plenary so I had no possibility to express my views on this draft report earlier. In general terms my delegation can support this draft resolution. I have only one remark relating to the working paragraph 1. I think that we have to have a very complex
approach to all these issues which are discussed here, because this is one of the most important resolutions of this Conference, maybe it will be our message which is summarizing up everything that we have achieved. That is why I want to propose to take into consideration, as there was some discussion which went on in Commission II relating to the WCARRD Conference. I think that appropriate agricultural development can be achieved only with good economic and social conditions. This first working paragraph makes references to one question of this very complex issue, that is why I would like to suggest, Mr. Chairman, if it is possible to have such a wording in the first working paragraph where we express our views that the agricultural development can be achieved only in appropriate economic and social conditions, and asking the Member countries to fulfil their commitments which they made two years ago at the WACRRD Conference.
M. TRKULJA (Yugoslavia): The sponsors of this resolution have attentively followed the debate and. after some consultation between us, we wish to state our position. We feel that here and there small changes or improvements could be made without substantially altering the text of the resolution. We fell that within a reasonable time, either this evening or tomorrow morning a group which would fairly represent the views expressed in our debate would be able to arrive at a text which we hope would then reflect as full a consensus as possible of the Conference.
I want to make one point quite clear on behalf of the six countries. With regard to the constitutional responsibility of the Director-General, we are not willing to compromise at all, because the constitutional responsibility is quite clear and very simple indeed. If you consult Article XVIII.1, you will see that the Director-General is obliged by the constitution to submit his proposals to every regular session of the Conference for approval. We do not think we should ever agree that the Director-General should be limited or bound by any resolution to negotiate with governments in advance of the Conference, the level of the budget, because we think that the basic purpose of the constitutional provision is that the Director-General should submit a programme of work and budget and not necessarily negotiate the budget, which is only one side, and the sheer monetary consequence of the programme. If there is such a tendency here in this body on the part of some to present such views, then I do not think, speaking on behalf of the six countries that we would be willing to take seriously into account such views because we do not think there is any possibility of narrowing down the constitutional responsibility of the Director-General.
We strongly believe that it should be possible, with slight improvements here and there, faithfully to reflect the facts and the situation here, especially in paragraph 4, without substantially altering the substance, to arrive at a text which would then be acceptable, we hope, to the whole Conference. I should like you, Mr. Chairman, to consider the position of the six sponsoring countries.
Sr. D. SANCHEZ (Colombia): La delegación de Colombia no había intervenido hasta ahora esperando el desarrollo del debate; pero ahora desea sumarse a la gran mayoría de países que aprueban el proyecto de résolución que nos ocupa.
A.G. NGONGI NAMANGA (Cameroon): I do not wish to delay us much longer but, since it seems likely that we are moving towards a decision that we should have a contact group for this item, I think we should have a few points cleared up.
There was broad support for this resolution. Several delegations mentioned that it was actually a weak resolution and that in their opinion it could be strengthened. We have had opinions from one group of countries which clearly cannot associate themselves with this resolution and therefore want to make it more favourable to their opinions.
Do I take it, Mr. Chairman, that when this contact group is established those countries who feel that the resolution is weak can also have their points appreciated in the resolution, because I think we are now attempting to have the resolution amended in one direction which will more or less just make it weaker than it is, although some countries have said it is just to clear up some inconsistencies. If it is a matter of minor changes, I do not think anyone would object to that but, if it is to make major changes which are to reflect positions of home governments which will be contrary to the debates and opinions expressed in the conference so far, it might not be very useful.
My opinion is that, if such a group is established, it should go into it with open minds, not with fixed positions that it has to reflect one particular wish of a group of countries. I’ am afraid that
especially in operative paragraph 4, countries might like to see restated what all those targets were supposed to be.
I hope it is quite clear that the majority of countries that have spoken in favour of this resolution are not yielding to this position out of a wish to weaken the resolution. This is an attempt to get a consensus on the resolution. It does not mean that they should bow down to all the pressures which will bear on them to change it substantially. I make that appeal. We accepted this resolution as it stood. We thought it was broad and flexible enough to cover all opinions. I should not wish to be in a position whereby we have to spell out exactly what we want to say in operative paragraph 4.
G. BULA HOYOS (Colombia): Creo que es un hecho evidente que la gran mayoría de los miembros de esta Comisión aprueban el proyecto de résolución en su forma actual. Sin embargo, el colega de Yugoslavia a nombre de los seis países ha manifestado que puede aceptar alguna mejora de relaciones en el texto. Creo que para evitar la creación de un nuevo grupo de contacto, pero al mismo tiempo para atender en cierta medida la solicitud que han hecho los delegados de la República Federal de Alemania y otros, podríamos decidir que el proyecto de résolución sea ahora enviado al Comité de Redacción de esta Comisión que debe reunirse inmediatamente después que concluyamos, en el entendido de que solo se harán reformas -en la redacción, en los aspectos marginales, y no en el fondo de la résolución, que ha contado con el gran apoyo de la mayoría de la Comisión. Esperamos que el Comité de Redacción pueda presentar un texto que cuando discutamos el proyecto de Informe en esta Comisión sea satisfactoria para todos.
En el Comité de Redacción de esta Comisión están países como Estados Unidos, Reino Unido y Suiza, que han expresado las posiciones de quienes tienen alguna reserva al texto actual.
H. WETZEL (Germany, Federal Republic of) (Original language German): I should like to refer to the proposal made by the delegate of Colombia to the effect that the Drafting Group of this Commission should also take up this draft resolution. I fear that I am not able to agree with him. The Drafting Group has the task of taking up matters which have actually been presented and to group them together in a report. The Drafting Committee cannot discuss matters which have not been mentioned here in the Commission. My purpose in proposing that a contact group be set up was to try to avoid a discussion in this Commission which might last until midnight when over a hundred Member States start to discuss details of wording. That is why I have not made any substantive proposal here in this Commission so far, and therefore I am not able to support what was said by the delegate of Yugoslavia in his second statement to the effect that the drafting group would take into consideration what had been said so far and try to arrive at a consensus. In the contact group it should be possible to introduce matters which have not been mentioned here at the Commission. Therefore, my proposal to set up a contact group, which has been supported by other delegations, should still be valid. I repeat this proposal and propose that we, the Commission, should appoint the members to the contact group.
M. TRKULJA (Yugoslavia): With your permission, Mr. Chairman, I will try to be even more specific. I would suggest that, provided you and the body of the Committee agree, the small group should be composed of the six members that originally submitted this resolution plus representatives of Finland, which spoke on behalf of the Nordic countries, the United States and the United Kingdom. I think that is a reasonable and even more than fair reflection of the views expressed here in the body.
As I said before, I am almost positive that we would at least be able to arrive at an agreed text on most of the things. It is not the intention of the six countries to negotiate the substantive points of the resolution. We still feel that the resolution was supported by most of the countries - unanimously, almost - but we feel that some improvement would then encourage some countries that are still hesitating to join in a full consensus.
I have suggested the composition of the small group, which could then meet either immediately after this session or perhaps tomorrow morning to try and present to you a text which would be agreeable to all.
CHAIRMAN: I do not want to begin a second round of debate because that will not bring us to the end we had hoped for. I am a little puzzled now. There have been a number of delegates who have indicated that they have not received instructions from their home offices. Now I understand that it could well be debated immediately in a small working group. I am in your hands, distinguished delegates. On the other side, from the 58 countries that spoke this afternoon a very clear position emerged. With regard to those countries who cannot pronounce their positions today on the resolution because they have not received instructions from their headquarters, that fact would simply be stated today. Maybe their instructions will be here tomorrow, and that could allow them to waive the reservations that they had today. But we cannot ignore the opinions that were, after all, expressed by some 45 countries who have spoken out clearly in favour of the resolution.
To the proposal of the Yugoslav delegate, I would only say that it would be impossible to do three things at once. The first is the drafting committee that should have been meeting half an hour ago; the second is the working group on the Mexican resolution; and the third another working group on the resolution we are debating at the moment. The drafting commission still has the last part of the report on the follow-up of WCARRD and that part has to be completed this evening in order that it may be printed and made available tomorrow for the debate in Commission II. That has priority. The next thing we have established is a working group to try to find a compromise to the first compromise which we formulated during the lunch break. So if it is indeed the intention to set up another working group, it could only possibly be after the one working on the Mexico resolution, because we have the same members sitting on it. For instance, the distinguished delegate of Yugoslavia would be on both. Possibly the USA could delegate because they have stronger numbers.
G. IJIGU (Ethiopia): I would like to remind you that the position taken by the distinguished delegate of Cameroon is also our position. What we now support I would be very unhappy to see weakened and then have myself to support another position. So when we send this issue back to some re-drafting group, I hope that it will not be weakened any further.
The second point I want to ask you is, when this re-drafted text comes back, whether it would be possible for us to get it in good time so that we can have a look at it and avoid having to stumble through it on the desk here?
CHAIRMAN: We have been highly impressed throughout this meeting to have the verbatim with only half an hour’s delay and to get draft reports within 24 hours, but I think it would not be possible to have it earlier than tomorrow morning, and tomorrow morning we start debating the report of the Commission. I am sorry to say this, but I do not want to create false expectations.
M. SANKARANARAYANAN (India): My delegation is one of the co-sponsors of this resolution. We knew when we sponsored it that it would not have an entirely smooth passage. We are, therefore, in full support of the stand taken by the distinguished delegate from Yugoslavia. In fact, he expressed the viewpoint taken by the member nations who sponsored this resolution.
I ought to mention, for the information of this Commission, that my delegation, and I in particular, was a member of the drafting committee of Commission I, where quite a.few of these controversial matters, such as food security and so: on, have been debated. On the drafting committee, the distinguished delegate from the United States of America was also a fellow member. The drafting committee of Commission I sat until nearly midnight last Thursday and sat until about 8 o’clock on Friday. We had several points of difference, but were able, without affecting, if I may say so, that substance of what we wanted to say, to arrive at a fair and reasonable degree of agreement; and Commission I this afternoon approved the three reports in quick succession.
It has, therefore, to me personally been a matter of some surprise that Commission II has been deliberating these resolutions at such great length.
Once again, we would strongly support the suggestion made by my distinguished friend from Yugoslavia and urge anew, whatever might be the other considerations and constraints, the desirability of constituting this working group with fair representation on all sides. Possibly this group could meet early tomorrow morning and we are confident that, as we did in Commission I, we would be able to thrash out a very substantial measure of agreement on this matter.
A.E. GUROFF (United States of America): I certainly do not want to re-open the debate. In fact, what I am rising to do is to support the Yugoslav and Indian proposal which has actually been on the table, proposed by a number of us, for probably two hours now. I do not see any difficulty with the chronology in front of us, that we can meet and discuss the other resolution immediately following our adjournment here, if we could get on to that, and the drafting committee can then go about its business. At 8.30 tomorrow morning we can convene the contact group. I would support the line proposed by the Yugoslav delegate, and, for my part, am prepared for the United States to participate tomorrow morning. I think that within an hour, or shortly thereafter, based on some consultations that have been going on, we can have something that can be processed while we are dealing with the adoption of the report in Plenary and brought back into Plenary later in the morning.
However, I must stress that we have difficulty in dealing with this second resolution tonight, in any case. The UK delegate who has been most involved should certainly participate, and he is not available this evening. The United States would have a similar problem in covering all the activities tonight, and I would be surprised if other delegations did not have the same kind of difficulty. I think the impasse is accepting that we can move things back an hour and a half tomorrow without the Conference descending into utter chaos.
T. AHMED (Pakistan): I do not wish to enter into or re-open the debate either, but as one of the co-sponsors of the resolution I entirely agree with the suggestion made by the distinguished delegate of Yugoslavia and endorsed by the delegate from the USA. We seem to have been going in circles for the last two hours. We could have had this contact group established much earlier and would have made progress.
As far as the clash between different groups is concerned, the drafting group and the contact group for the earlier, Mexican resolution can in all probability meet simultaneously because the one or two delegations represented on both these groups are multi-member delegations. I have informally contacted some of them and they are willing to meet simultaneously. Therefore, the drafting group and the contact group on the Mexican resolution can meet immediately afterwards. The contact group on this resolution, as suggested by Yugoslavia and the USA, can meet early tomorrow morning; I would agree with Cameroon and Yugoslavia that the contact group would not perhaps seek to change the substance of the resolution which has been supported by the majority of the members so that there is every prospect that, with a little reformulation and a little modification, and retaining the substance of the resolution, we can arise at a consensus tomorrow. I strongly urge that you adjourn now and let the groups meet.
CHAIRMAN: Thank you for that contructive proposal, which I take. I will make a slight modification to it by suggesting that we suspend proceedings for one hour and the working group on the Mexican draft resolution meet immediately in the Mexico room. I would suggest, in view of the number of people involved in both, that the second working group follow immediately afterwards. That would settle the business for this evening.
H. WETZEL (Germany, Federal Republic of) (original language German): I have always heard with great pleasure today and earlier your words, “I am in your hands.” Therefore, if the sponsors of this resolution jointly make a proposal, a proposal which would seem also to meet with the approval of the Commission, that is to say, to meet tomorrow morning, to convene the contact group for tomorrow morning, I ask you to give this proposal a little weight.
CHAIRMAN: Of course, I am in your hands, but you only have two of them and there are others who are in the majority in this case.
M. TRKULYA (Yugoslavia): I am prepared to follow any lead of yours but I am just wondering how many people you will find after an hour’s adjournment, so I would strongly suggest that we adjourn now, have a contact group on the Mexican proposal, and another at 8.30 tomorrow. I am, like my Pakistani friend, positive that in an hour’s time we would be able to present you with a text which would be very close to consensus, if not being the full consensus of all. I doubt very much that there is a need to continue with an evening session after adjourning for an hour.
CHAIRMAN: I will make another proposal, that the working group on the Mexican draft proposal meet now. Please accept that as a ruling of the chair in order to make a systematic and rational use of our time, which is getting shorter and shorter. We will suspend the meeting now and we will resume the debate on the Mexican resolution at 8 o’clock. I accept the proposal of the Yugoslav and Pakistan delegates that we move the second working group to tomorrow morning. Can you suggest any specific time?
T. AHMED (Pakistan): There was a suggestion from the delegate for Yugoslavia that at a specific time - that is, 8.30 tomorrow morning - the Contact Group can meet, but, as you have been so kind as to give me the floor, may I suggest - as I did earlier - that when the Contact Group on the Mexican Resolution is meeting in the Mexican room, within that hour the Drafting Committee can meet in the Philippines room and deal with that this evening. We have now only the one point to finish, which we may deal with in 45 minutes. As I said earlier, I have established informal contacts, and most of the delegations on the drafting group are willing to meet simultaneously when the Mexican resolution is being discussed, because most of them are member delegations.
CHAIRMAN: I welcome the proposal of the delegate of Pakistan. Again: the meeting of the Working Group would now be disbanded for one hour; the Working Group on the Mexican Resolution would meet; and the Drafting Committee would sit simultaneously on their remaining half of the Report; and tomorrow at 8.30, again in the Mexican room, we would have the sponsors of the Resolution on Resources for Food Production and Agricultural Development; and at 9.30 we would begin the morning session.
A. JUAN MARCOS ISSA (Mexico): Señor Presidente: Usted había citado a una nueva reunion para dentro de una hora para ver exclusivamente la Resolución presentada por México. Considero, junto con otros delegados que me han precedido en el uso de la palabra, que en este caso específico de la Resolución presentada por México, si entiendo bien, la reunion del Grupo de Contacto es para ver si ciertos países que han manifestado ciertas reservas estarían de acuerdo o podríamos llegar a un acuerdo si hay ciertas modificaciones en ciertas palabras.
Yo considero, señor Presidente, que no es necesario que usted cite otra vez a la Asamblea para ver la résolución Mëxicana exclusivamente dentro de una hora, porque si no llegamos a un acuerdo en el grupo de Contacto, simple y sencillamente sabremos que esos países pondrán su reserva en la résolución de la Comisión II.
CHAIRMAN: Delegate for Mexico, the result of the Contact Group discussions would have to be another Draft Resolution, and I think it is fair enough to bring back to the Commission as a whole. I do not want delegates tomorrow morning to indicate to me that the meeting has taken place without their presence. Therefore I suggest that the Contact Group which consists of only Libya, the United States, Mexico, the United Kingdom, Yugoslavia, Cameroon, Spain and Canada meet now, and in one hour we will hopefully have the result of the work of that Contact Group presented to the Commission.
LE DIRECTEUR GENERAL: Je crois qu’il est très important, pour faciliter les choses, que le texte de la résolution, tel qu’il sera approuvé par le groupe de contact, ne soit pas envoyé au Comité de redaction, mais directement à la Commission II comme faisant partie du rapport pour être adopté.
LE PRESIDENT: Je suis d’accord que cela doit être fait ce soir. There are certain prerogatives to the Chairman. I now suggest that we suspend the meeting for one hour and that the Contact Group which I have indicated before should be invited to meet in the Mexican room, and that we meet one hour later.
A.E. GUROFF (United States of America): I think, with all due respect, we would really be unwise to come back here after an hour’s debate, keeping everybody here on the assumption - I think that is right - that we can deal with our business neatly and cleanly in an hour. Certainly, we cannot have before this body a retyped version in the various languages, as we are used to dealing with, immediately following our discussion. It seems, that assuming that the Contact Group - and I am hopeful that it meets with success - that if we allow the Secretariat to process the document and present it to us, I think it can be adopted here immediately following our adoption of the Draft Report tomorrow, if we can go through it fairly quickly. I do not see any necessity to keep people standing by this evening.
T. AHMED (Pakistan): With due deference to your desires, Mr. Chairman, I fully support the suggestion made by the delegate of the United States, and the Director-General has very kindly given us the way out. If the Contact Group of the Mexican Resolution reaches a consensus on a certain draft formulation, it does not have to go to the Drafting Group - it can go straight to Commission II tomorrow while Commission II is adopting the Report, so we do not have to meet tonight to go through it again: tomorrow is the usual time for adoption of the Report, and, of course, the difficulties of translation and the other problems of making people wait have to be given due weight.
A. JUAN-MARCOS ISSA (Mexico): Gracias señor Presidente. Simplemente para apoyar la proposición del Director General y el procedimiento que nos ha propuesto.
CHAIRMAN: We have now gathered the views of quite a number of delegates. I take your advice, that we now invite the Contact Group on the Mexican Resolution to sit in the Mexican room. The results will be a Draft Resolution which will go tomorrow straight to the Commission during the approval of the Report, and we will have another meeting of the Second Contact Group tomorrow at 8.30. We will proceed accordingly: that is, the results of that Contact Group on the second Resolution will also be presented directly to Commission II. Is this acceptable to the Chairman of the Drafting Committee and the delegate of Pakistan? - It is.
J.P. WARNIMONT (Belgique): Votre résolution me paraît excellente, toutefois je souhaiterais connaître la composition du second groupe de contact et, le cas ëchéant, je vous demanderais de bien vouloir y ajouter le nom de ma délégation.
LE PRESIDENT: La composition du second groupe de travail se compose des pays mentionnés sur le document C 81/LIM/31. II y en a six: L’Inde, le Liban, le Pakistan, la Tunisie, le Soudan, la Yougoslavie, il a été suggéré que la Finlande, les USA, le Royaume-Uni y particeperont; la Belgique offre une participation; je vois que la Commission est d’accord, vous êtes donc membre. Je vous remercie beaucoup. One annoucement at the end; the Drafting Committee will meet immediately - I see nodded agreement from the Chairman. The Mexican Contact Group will meet in the Mexican room - and I see that the delegate of Mexico would like to give a welcome to the Mexican room.
A. JUAN-MARCOS ISSA (Mexico): Solo para proponer a Perú dentro del Grupo de Contacto en la Comisión I, si usted no tiene inconveniente.
CHAIRMAN: Is this acceptable to the Commission? … Yes. We will adjourn until tomorrow at 9.30.
The meeting rose at 19.15 hours
La séance est levée à 19 h 15
Se levanta la sesión a las 19.15 horas
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* Texte reçu avec demande d’insertion au procès-verbal
