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AGENDA ITEM 3.

FURTHER ADJUSTMENT TO

THE PROGRAMME OF WORK AND BUDGET 2020-2021

Thank you, Mr. Chairperson,

Indonesia has the honour to deliver this statement on behalf of the Group of 77 and China.

We welcome the Director-General’s proposed further adjustment to the programme of work and budget which aims at increasing coordination and eliminating silos in dealing with complex and interconnected challenges facing agriculture and food systems today.

We also thank the Director-General for holding a series of consultations on his proposal, which have brought clarity to their content and conveyed a sense of urgency to their implementation.

We appreciate that the proposal falls within the Conference-approved net appropriation budget level for 2020-21 and transforms the organigram into a more modular and flatter one in order to better respond to emerging needs and priorities.

We fully support the proposed establishment of the Office of Sustainable Development Goals for coordinating FAO’s engagement in the follow-up and review of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. We stress the importance of the Office of SDGs in assisting developing countries and economies in transition in achieving the Agenda 2030 to ensure that no one is left behind.

In this regard, we view the strategic importance of improving the effectiveness of the Technical Cooperation Programme (TCP) in producing tangible results on the ground. All FAO does as a knowledge organization, including within its normative mandate, necessitates the TCP for uptake and implementation by member States.

Against this backdrop, the Group of 77 and China is looking forward to discussing further on the TCP, including its criteria for resources´ allocation on the ground, at the next joint meeting of the Programme Committee and Finance Committee, in November 2020.

We also support the proposals regarding strengthening the Investment Centre and Joint FAO centres with WHO and IAEA respectively.

We also welcome the proposal to establish new division on Food Systems and Food Safety.

The Group of G77 and China acknowledges the importance of innovation, including all sustainable innovative approaches, digital tools and new technologies as one of the core priorities of the programme of work and budget.

We support the proposal to strengthen the Hand-in-Hand initiative, in particular during Covid-19 pandemic to focus on rapid response to changing needs; and we look forward to the expansion of the initiative to other countries in all regions.

We take note of the proposal to reduce Multidisciplinary Fund from USD 10 million to USD 8,5 million, while stressing the need for the FAO to explore ways to increase the funding.

Improvements in the quantity and quality of funding lie at the heart of last´s year Funding Compact in the framework of UNGA resolution 72/729. In that line, we highlight that non-core resources are critical for FAO´s activities to expand on the ground in order to achieve SDG 1 and 2, and their impact is enhanced when they are predictable and unearmarked.

We take note of the disbandment of Office of Support to Decentralized Offices and the mainstreaming of its duties. We are certain that this adjustment will expand and strengthen the decentralized network, so that FAO can better serve all its members. We expect to see that efforts to deliver at the regional and country levels are amplified and reinforced.

Against these backgrounds, the Group expresses its fervent hope that the FAO will deliver more efficiently and effectively to give more impact on the ground.  

Mr. Chairperson,

During this troubling COVID-19 pandemic period, the developing countries’ economies are projected to decline steeply, and in some cases catastrophically. Incoming data on the pandemic’s negative impact, both in terms of human suffering and socioeconomic damage is staggering and on a continuously rising curve even as we speak. Hundreds of millions of people across the globe, in developed and developing countries alike, risk falling into extreme poverty and hunger.

We call to put an end to financial labels, economic sanctions and unilateral measures undertaken against international law which hinders the access to food and livestock amid COVID-19 pandemic.

In this context, the Group of 77 and China stresses the need to strengthen multilateralism, global solidarity, and partnership, particularly in safeguarding global food supply chains and markets, and calls on FAO to give a decisive response to the fullest extent of its mandate.  

Our group would like to assure our support on both prevention and crisis-response measures taken by FAO in addressing the impacts of COVID-19 pandemic. We call on FAO to give more attention and use its expertise to assist developing countries and economies in transition in dealing with the impacts of COVID-19 pandemic to food systems in short, medium and long terms.

We conclude by commending the Director-General for his proposal, which aims at mobilizing FAO against a perfect storm that is threatening all we have built in seventy-five years of multilateralism and jeopardizing the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. The current pandemic is making everything worse. Today, more than ever, we all need an FAO that is stronger, more flexible, and more responsive. The adjustment that the DG is proposing tends to address these needs. The Group of 77 and China endorses the adjustment and calls for all Council members to approve it.

I thank you.