New Zealand

UN General Assembly
Inter-Governmental Negotiations on the Outcome Document of the Post-2015 Development Agenda



New Zealand Statement

Delivered by Angela Hassan-Sharp,
Counsellor


20 July 2015







Check against delivery

Co-facilitators,
New Zealand is pleased to see the form that this final zero draft of the post-2015 development agenda is taking and appreciates the clear and concise language used throughout the document. We agree with the statement made by my distinguished colleague from Colombia that the title of the agenda has to include the term ‘sustainable development’. As it currently reads, the title could be a call to action on any issue.
We support the actionable and “tweetable” nature of the preamble as a succinct preamble will be an important tool for communication following adoption of the agenda.
The Declaration, albeit longer than we think is really necessary, provides a coherent and fulsome narrative that appropriately contextualises the rest of the agenda.
New Zealand supports the emphasis on the country-owned and led nature of the Follow Up and Review process and in particular the need for high-quality and disaggregated data that is able to quickly and accurately help us report on progress and gaps in implementation of the SDGs and to leave no-one behind.
Now that the Addis Ababa Action Agenda is concluded, we look forward to a discussion on how best to reference the document in the post-2015 development agenda.
We are, however, concerned by what is clearly differential treatment of Target 14C on UNCLOS and we echo the question asked by AOSIS earlier, as to why Target 14C has been separated and isolated, as it were, from the package of twenty-one targets that you proposed minor tweaks to. Like the EU, we believe this target needs to be included, as proposed by the co-facilitators, in the zero draft. We are concerned that the non-inclusion of your revised 14C text into the zero draft is not consistent with the procedure followed with the rest of the twenty-one targets. From our perspective, the twenty-one targets have been consistently and usefully treated as one single package and we do not see any rationale for treating any one target differently as we head into this final and critical leg of negotiations.
We welcomed Ambassador Donohue’s call, earlier today, for delegations to take it upon ourselves to resolve the outstanding issues that remain to be agreed. We hear you. Our delegation recognizes that there are strong views on all sides with regard to Target 14C, but these are issues that we, member States, have dealt with before and in those instances we have worked hard and found consensus language. It should be no different here. We know that like New Zealand, many other countries consider that getting accurate language in 14C is important. Over the coming days, we look forward to engaging openly and constructively with all member States to effectively resolve this issue.
Thank you.