Working Party on the Programme Plan and Programme Performance, eighty-seventh session (Opening Remarks)
Dear Peter Nalanda, Chair of the Working Party,
Dear Rashaun Watson, Vice-Chair of the Working Party,
Excellencies, distinguished delegates, ladies and gentlemen,
It is my pleasure to welcome you to this Working Party to review UNCTAD’s proposed programme plan for 2025.
The plan builds on Secretary-General Grynspan’s vision on the way forward for UNCTAD, and your feedback on the proposals presented in the informal session in October.
This plan is particularly important since it will guide our work in the year following our 60th anniversary and when we hold the 16th ministerial conference which will define UNCTAD’s new mandate.
I will structure my remarks into five parts. First, I will explain the overall orientation of the document. Second, I will speak about our 2023 performance highlighted in the programme plan. Third, I will present the proposed results for 2025. Four, I want to update you on the budget approved for 2024. And finally, I want to share progress on our Results Framework.
ONE: Overall orientation and context of the 2025 proposed programme plan
The overall orientation embeds the current challenging context marked by the multiple crises. In particular, the mounting debt in many low-income and also middle-income countries is an immense challenge to development and constrains the ability of many developing countries to transform to low-carbon economies.
Therefore, fostering more inclusive and sustainable development and enhancing resilience to crises, especially in developing countries, will continue to be at the core of our work. We will continue strengthening our support on how trade, investment and technology can offer means for transforming to low-carbon economies and help countries achieve the goals of the Paris Agreement.
In line with the Bridgetown Covenant, sustainability is the main transversal issue of the 2025 programme plan, ranging from climate finance, support for sustainable finance practices, integration of trade policies into nationally determined contributions, to supporting countries in building e-commerce ecosystems for sustainable development, and building the resilience of least developed countries through productive capacities.
Also the objectives of Agenda 2030 remain at the center of our work and we will do our utmost to support countries get the SDGs back on track.
We will support member States to make progress towards achieving the SDGs as well as use our statistical capacity to develop international standards and methodologies for monitoring SDG indicators. Our Statistics Service will provide timely and high-quality statistical information and indicators on the interrelated areas of trade and development. Moreover, the Statistics Service will ensure coordinated statistical capacity development, and support developing countries in building their capacity to collect and compile data and measure progress in sustainable, inclusive and equitable trade and development.
Interdivisional cooperation and coherence will remain a top priority to enhance the effectiveness and efficiency of our work. We can draw on several good practices, such as the Global Crisis Response Group which is still in operation. We will further enhance integrating gender in our work through the Gender Committee, and use the inter-divisional working group on climate and the environment for fostering a new global trade, financial and policy framework that includes climate change and the environment. Thanks to inter-divisional work in this area, we could already ensure an UNCTAD cohesive and coordinated voice at the recent COP, including the first Trade Day and Trade Pavilion along with WTO, ITC and ICC .
UNCTAD will continue forging strategic partnerships with entities in the UN development system as well as with entities from the private sector, academia, and other international and regional organizations. This will allow us combining our expertise with the reach and in-country presence of partners, including through our Regional Office for Africa. These partnerships are critical for increasing the sustainability of our efforts and foremost to increase value for our member States.
Moreover, our cooperation with international financial institutions, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and the Group of 20 will remain an important avenue to contribute to international policy debates on trade, investment and finance.
Finally, committed to our universal membership, we will support all countries in attaining sustainable and equitable growth and development, while being particularly mindful of the needs and priorities of developing countries. In this spirit, we will also continue our work on South-South and triangular cooperation to maximize support and outcomes.
TWO: Performance in 2023
As you are aware, owing to the limitations of the template, we could not present to you all the work accomplished in 2023. A much more comprehensive picture of our work will be available in the Annual Report released in spring.
In the programme plan, each year, subprogrammes can select one result to showcase performance. The results selected reflect the multidimensional nature of our work, in terms of themes, areas and geographic focus:
- Two results exemplify work that is gaining momentum, namely, the result on policy debates on climate and finance from a development perspective, and the result on enhancing consumer product safety in developing countries.
- The result on how UNCTAD work is improving the investment climate shows our commitment to enhance transparency and access to trade and investment related information.
- The result of the CropWatch programme shows innovative work to enhance food security of developing countries through satellite technology.
- The result on increased intra-regional trade in West Africa due to converging legal frameworks on transport, intermediation, transit and trade showcases our support to regional integration in Africa.
THREE: Looking ahead – Proposed results for 2025
As already mentioned, 2025 will be special given the 16th quadrennial conference. It will provide a moment to reflect on achieved results and new challenges, and prepare for a new mandate accounting for the evolving needs of our membership.
While we cannot predict exactly the state of play in 2025, the current context, the commitments under the Bridgetown Covenant and your feedback during the preparatory session of the Working Party helped us shape the results highlighted in the proposed programme plan.
The selection of the results mirrors the diversity of our work and strong commitment to use UNCTAD’s three pillars of work: Consensus building, research and analysis, and technical cooperation:
- Under Subprogramme 1, we propose enhancing debt transparency of developing countries, which is essential for preventing and resolving debt crises.
- Under Subprogramme 2, we will focus on attracting and channeling more foreign direct investment into the SDGs to address the SDG investment gap.
- Under Subprogramme 3, we will support developing countries in better leveraging trade policies to cut emissions and enhance their adaptation capacity, and support the implementation of Nationally Determined Contributions.
- Under Subprogramme 4, we will focus on improving the availability of digital economy statistics in developing countries to guide digital economy policy that works for development.
- And finally, under Subprogramme 5, we propose to focus on enhancing statistical capacity of least developed countries and other vulnerable countries to help embrace a paradigm shift in the formulation of holistic economic diversification policies to achieve structural transformation.
During the Working Party, you will have the opportunity to discuss these results in detail with the Divisions.
As every year, after this process, the proposed programme plan will be submitted to the Office for Programme Planning, Finance and Budget for their review of coherence and alignment with the whole UN Secretariat fascicle. Then, it will be submitted for review by your counterparts in the Committee of Programme Coordination, experts in the ACABQ and the members of the Fifth Committee.
FOUR: Update on the 2024 proposed budget
In December, the 2024 proposed budget was approved by the Fifth Committee. Overall, there are no significant changes to what was proposed and submitted to the committee. The budget stays at the maintenance level.
However, on recommendation of the ACABQ, our budget allocation for ‘Supplies and Materials’ was cut by US$ 38’100.
Moreover, the Fifth Committee recommended a cross-cutting reduction against the non-post resources of around US$ 1.9 million for the Secretariat. For us, this means a cut of US$29’700.
Thus, in total, our budget of US$ 80’475’300 was reduced by US$ 67’800. The total number of posts remains at 388.
We uploaded to the Delegates Portal the 2024 proposed fascicle so that you can familiarize yourselves with the proposed resources picture. As you know, this is Part B of the document.
Finally, I also would like to draw your attention to the current financial situation. Owing to the cash liquidity issue for the ‘Regular Budget’, only 20% of the 2024 allotments have been made available to entities.
FIVE: Progress on result-based management
One area where we have kept you informed and have been working hard on is our mainstreaming of Results Based Management (RBM) as a working tool for management. I am pleased to let you know that we have completed the work on designing an UNCTAD corporate result framework. Performance indicators have also been defined. We would like to organize a briefing to show the results to you, member States, in the first week of April 2024. An invitation will be sent to all.
This exercise is not an academic use of RBM, but an attempt to show you the progress we have made in the implementation of the Bridgetown Covenant through the lens of UNCTAD results framework. We are looking forward to seeing you at this meeting.
Finally, and to further enhance transparency and share information, I want to mention that apart from the 2025 draft programme plan, we uploaded to the Delegates Portal three management reports containing the most recent data as of 31 December 2024: One report is on gender balance, one on geographical representation and one on internships in UNCTAD.
Following your request last year, we also prepared a 2023 performance report on the implementation of deliverables, to complement the information in the overview tables of deliverables in the programme plan.
I like to finish with thanking you, dear delegates and regional coordinators, for your candid feedback and continued engagement. I also want to thank UNCTAD colleagues for preparing the plan and all supporting documents. It is a process that requires many people, discussions, consultations but it is thanks to your engagement that we have a solid document.
Thank you.