Intervention of the Delegation of Viet Nam
at the sixth intergovernmental negotiations on the Post-2015 Development Agenda
(Follow up and review – June 24, 2015)
Mr. Co-facilitator,
My delegation associates itself with the statement by South Africa on behalf the Group of 77 and China and would like to add a few points in our national capacity.
Let me start by commenting on the follow up and review at the national level: we share the view of many spoken before us that the mechanism proposed in the zero draft is too prescriptive and we are concerned that it could overburden our government agencies with reporting responsibilities. In Viet Nam, we already have in place a national follow up and review process of our own Sustainable Development Strategy and our sustainable development commitments. We wish to have the flexibility and space to build on the existing process in accordance with our capacity and priorities. Also, we find it appropriate and effective to make the most of existing mechanisms, in particular the oversight function of national parliaments.
At the global level, while measuring progress in development outcome is important, it offers the unbalanced approach of only looking at the outputs and not the inputs, it only tells us about the destination but does not tell us how we got there, or how we failed to get there. On the other hand, monitoring inputs, or Means of Implementation, is more useful to help us draw lessons on how to make progress on the respective targets. Our delegation therefore believes that core to this exercise is the follow-up and review on the Means of Implementation at the global level.
Follow-up and review has an intrinsic connection with sustainable development indicators. On this note, we wish to underscore the importance of producing quality global indicators on sustainable development which must reflect truthfully and capture the essence of the Sustainable Development goals and targets. In many developing countries, including Viet Nam, without the adequate statistical capacity, global indicators would be a reference point to devise our own national indicators. More importantly, in reality, development funding and program priorities and their evaluation by the international development cooperation community will naturally focus around global indicators and not necessarily on national indicators. Our understanding is that the task of developing SDG global indicators is currently being undertaken by the Inter Agency and Expert Group on SDG Indicators under the auspices of the UN Statistical Commission. Given its importance, we would like to echo what was said by the PR of Rwanda on behalf of the African Group on Monday, that this global indicator framework should be given adequate attention and we need to ensure the GA’s role in this process.
I thank you Mr. Co-Facilitator.
