Statement by His Excellency Mr. Hafiz Uddin Ahmad, B.B. Minister for Water
Resources, Government of the People's Republic of Bangladesh at the
High-level Meeting of the 12 th Session of the Commission on Sustainable
Development on the theme : Responding to Challenges on April 29, 2004
Mr. Chairman,
We align ourselves with the statement of the distinguished representative of Qatar made on
behalf of the Group of 77 and China . We would, however, like to highlight the following .
Two years back, at Johannesburg, the world community met - concerned by the non-action
on the implementation of the Agenda - 21 and the gradual degradation of the environment
of the planet. We came out with an accomplishable programme of implementation (Poll)
and a set of commitments . The Johannesburg Plan is a participatory process where all the
stakeholders, including the UN agencies, have important roles to play in attaining the goal
ahd targets set therein .
It is needless to reemphasize the important complementary role that the UN agencies play
in our development endeavours . We are encouraged to see that since Johannesburg, the
inter-agency cooperation and coordination has been initiated to implement the PoI . We
hope this will result in reduction of transaction cost . Greater cooperation and coordination
should lead to effective harnessing of the comparative advantage of various UN agencies .
We concur with the views of Chief Executive Board (CEB) that strategic and programmatic
framework to advance implementation should be flexible and action-oriented and maximum
UN system support should be provided for a sustained follow-up . We, however, remain
convinced that development is primarily a national responsibility - domestically engineered,
owned and driven . Collaborations therefore must take place in the priority areas identified
by the national government .
While we fully appreciate the research work done by the UN agencies - what is regarded as
their involvement upstream, we stress their greater involvement in downstream as well . We
are concerned by the near stagnant situation of core resources and request our
development partners to fulfill their commitments regarding ODA. UN agencies that service
us must be strengthened .
I thank you .
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BANGLADESH
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