AS DELIVERED

Thank you Mr. Chair, and thanks to the Vice Chair, facilitator, and participants in the negotiation for their constructive engagement.

The United States is proud to be leader on financing for development. As we noted at the beginning of the Second Committee, “the scale and impact of private capital, domestic resource mobilization, philanthropy, remittances and other financial flows, and enhanced commerce and investment now dwarf ODA’s role in development finance. The diversity of financing promises to increase developing countries’ self-reliance.” But while we are joining consensus today, we take this opportunity to express our concern that the duplicative negotiations on financing for development at the UN do not advance that agenda, instead wasting time and resources on parallel negotiations and redundant reports.

We are extremely disappointed that almost immediately after Member States agreed to reduce overlap and duplication within the UN, many Member States in this room have insisted on upholding a duplicative resolution with no value added to the process. This resolution is a prime example of the overlap and duplication between the work of the General Assembly and the Economic and Social Council, ECOSOC. Each year, ECOSOC holds the Financing for Development, FfD, Forum and facilitates the negotiation of an outcome document, which contains all of the substantive conversation needed for FfD. We reiterate that an annual FfD resolution here in the General Assembly is completely unnecessary and should be eliminated from the Second Committee agenda.

Finally, regarding references to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the Addis Ababa Action Agenda, and the characterization of technology transfer, we reiterate our concerns as addressed in our General Statement delivered on November 8, 2018. Thank you.

###