Jesse Walter
Advisor for Economic and Social Affairs
U.S. Mission to the United Nations
New York, New York
November 24, 2020
AS DELIVERED
On behalf of the U.S. government, I would like to thank the co-facilitators from Tuvalu and Trinidad and Tobago for their leadership on this resolution.
The United States will continue working with our SIDS friends as they seek to recover better and stronger from the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic.
We would like to explain our position on a few issues. With regards to OP11, the United States does not support the creation of a new financial instrument with unproven effectiveness.
Regarding OP13, the United States believes that concessional finance should be focused on countries that are most in need and least able to access other sources of financing. We reiterate, however, that the proper fora for establishing eligibility and allocation criteria are the Boards of the MDBs or the OECD, not the UN. We also believe per capita income and creditworthiness should be the primary criteria to assess development and graduation readiness, and we do not support the development of multidimensional eligibility criteria for concessional finance that could be subject to manipulation and political influence.
Finally, regarding references to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the Addis Ababa Action Agenda, the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction, the New Urban Agenda, the Paris Agreement and climate change, as well as the reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, we refer you to our General Statement delivered on November 18.
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