5th Session of the Intergovernmental Negotiations on Post-2015 Development Agenda
Follow-up and Review
May 19, 2015
Intervention by Mr. Amit Narang, Counsellor, Permanent Mission of India
Thank you Mr. Co-Facilitator,
As we conclude this phase of our work and shift gears, let me also join others in thanking both of you Co-Facilitators for the amazing work that has been done under your guidance over the past few months.
We look forward to your leadership in the months ahead, not just to agree on an ambitious outcome in September, but also to ensure holidays in August - which means a timely conclusion to the process on 31st of July!
Mr. Co-Facilitator,
We thank Ambassador Kamau for a useful summary of the way forward which he presented earlier today. We have a small comment and one clarification to seek.
But before I do that, we of course support the statement made by G-77, in particular the points on the Technology Facilitation Mechanism, and the statements made by other developing country group.
Mr. Co-Facilitator,
We will refrain from repeating our positions and statements on the substantive parts of the agenda. We have presented detailed expositions of our views in the past few months and we have confidence that you will take them fully into account while preparing the zero draft.
Our positions on key issues are well known. For example, poverty eradication being the central and overarching objective of this exercise; the difference between agreed principles like common but differentiated responsibilities on the one hand and new and emerging - no not economies - but new concepts such as universality and shared responsibilities on which there is no shared understanding; our views on communicability and simplicity where we agree with Albert Einstein who said “Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler” – in other words, simplicity not at the cost of substance; the relationship between Post-2015 Development Agenda and Financing for Development which in our view is one of complementarity and not subsidiarity; our approach to ‘review and follow up’ as against ‘accountability’; our preference for working on three pillars of sustainable development not four; and the importance of a concrete deliverable on Technology Facilitation Mechanism, in the context of this process. These views are very well known to you, so I won’t repeat them.
The clarification that I wished to seek was regarding the SDG targets. We were wondering what has become of the technical proofing, which was being attempted? We perhaps missed this in your initial remarks the morning. We heard some delegations saying that SDGs as revised should be included in the zero draft.
As far as we can remember, nothing has been revised so far and our impression of the discussions so far was that even on the targets with Xs and Ys there seems to be a very wide spectrum of views in the room, often incompatible.
So we agree with others who have said that the outcome of the Open Working Group, as endorsed by the General Assembly, should be included in the zero draft going forward, and not any revisions.
And finally it was apparently mentioned this morning that Chapter 3 will be missing in the zero draft pending the conclusion of the Addis Ababa Conference.
I wanted to just refresh our collective memory that in fact MOI targets are already included in our work. Goal 17 and the goal specific MOIs in the SDGs constitute in our view, the core of the MOI component of the September outcome and the FfD outcome is only supposed to complement that.
Now, we all know that the MOI targets have come under fair amount of sniper fire over the last few months but we count on your leadership to ensure that when you do prepare the zero draft, these will not be Missing in Action.
Thank you.
