Review of technical cooperation activities of UNCTAD

The Trade and Development Board,

1. Takes note with appreciation of the report on technical cooperation activities of UNCTAD and their financing (TD/B/48/5 and Add. 1-2), as well as the indicative plan of UNCTAD’s technical cooperation for 2002;
2. Notes with satisfaction improvements in the quality of the reports, and requests that comments and suggestions made at the thirty-eighth session of the Working Party be taken into account in the preparation of future reports;
3. Notes with interest the increase in the level of bilateral and multilateral contributions to UNCTAD trust funds, expresses its appreciation to bilateral and multilateral donors for their contributions, and invites all bilateral and multilateral donors to consider increasing their contributions to UNCTAD trust funds for developing countries and in particular in favour of Africa, which is a host of 34 of the 49 LDCs;
4. Emphasizes the importance of predictability of funding and the sustainability of UNCTAD’s technical cooperation programmes, and in this regard encourages multi-year contributions;
5. Welcomes improvements in the utilization of developing countries’ human capital in the implementation of technical cooperation activities, and calls for further geographical diversification of consultants and experts, especially in favour of developing countries;
6. Requests the UNCTAD secretariat to play its role in combined international efforts to assist developing countries to derive full benefits from trade and to reduce poverty through, inter alia, mainstreaming trade into development strategies and enhanced partnership with other agencies involved in delivering trade-related technical assistance, especially for LDCsin the context of the Integrated Framework;
7. Requests the secretariat to continue to work on consolidation and clustering of technical cooperation activities;
8. Welcomes and underlines the importance of the secretariat’s initiative to conduct an internal review of technical cooperation with a view to enhancing the impact of technical cooperation activities, making the different components of programmes more cohesive and streamlining operational procedures to ensure greater efficiency and better results,and requests the Secretary-General of UNCTAD to present the results of the internal review to the mid-term review for discussion;
9. Reiterates its request, as expressed in Board decision 461 (XLVII), with regard to translation of documents in all official languages.

924^th plenary meeting
4 October 2001