Mr. Chairman,

The Chinese delegation associates itself with the statement made by South Africa on behalf of the Group of 77 and China. We wish to thank UNDP Administrator Clark for her statement and commend her and UNDP for the manner in which they engage the international community to actively respond to new development challenges, tackle

the core issues of development, eliminate poverty and achieve MDGs and sustainable development.

2015 is a special year. This year, we will celebrate the 70th anniversary of the founding of the United Nations and the worldwide victory against fascism. In the area of international development cooperation, the United Nations will be holding a development summit and adopting a post-2015 development agenda. Today although the number of people living in poverty has been drastically reduced thanks to the steady implementation of MDGs, due to deep adjustments that world economy has gone through, developing countries still face daunting tasks in their economic development and in their efforts to improve the livelihood of their people.

In particular, the situation of LDCs hasn’t had any substantial improvement. Therefore China will continue to endorse UNDP as the lead agency within the UN development system and support its efforts to play a bigger role in implementing the 2014-2017 Strategic Plan and helping the developing countries eliminate poverty and achieve comprehensive, balanced and sustainable development guided by the post-2015 development agenda. And China would like to highlight the following points:

First, as the largest body in the field of development within the United Nations system, UNDP, on the strength of its innate advantage and its worldwide operational presence, has made active contributions to the development of the developing countries. The Chinese delegation encourages UNDP to continue to give full play to its advantages, attach great importance to the needs for development and the challenges faced by different categories of program countries, such as the least developed countries and the middle-income countries, and effectively help the developing countries realize stable and sustainable development.

Secondly, the Chinese delegation takes note of the Report on Direct Budget Support, 2008-2014 submitted by UNDP to the Executive Board for its consideration. The Chinese delegation is of the view that the existing funding mechanisms should be geared towards effectively combining resources from different sources in order to promote coherence, coordination, risk-management and cost effectiveness in the use of the recourses while responding to specific development needs of the program countries. We hope that UNDP will continue to follow the provisions of the resolutions concerning QCPR, bring into full play its advantages, take into account the actual situation faced by the program countries with regard to development and fully respect the principle of national ownership and leadership in its endeavor to support the developing countries in their efforts towards poverty reduction and sustainable development.

Thirdly, the Chinese delegation takes note of the response given by UNDP and the Independent Evaluation Office to the Review of the Evaluation Policy for 2014. The Chinese delegation acknowledges the efforts and achievements made by UNDP to conduct independent evaluation and set up an independent evaluation system in the area of evaluation. We hope that, after carefully studying and analyzing the report on the review, UNDP will attach great importance to the improvement and follow-up of and the feed-back to the evaluation policy, and support to strengthen the operational independence and transparence of the Independent Evaluation Office.

Fourthly, the Chinese delegation has noticed that in recent years there has been a trend towards an imbalance of the total amount of resources and an overall reduction of core resources. We believe that the definition of critical mass of core resources is beneficial for UN funds and programmes to formulate in a rational manner and implement its programs and effectively support the development of program countries. And the Chinese delegation encourages UNDP to do more in fund-raising and calls upon all parties, by way of increasing the total core donations and improving the quality of non-core resources, to further improve UN financing for development.

Fifthly, South-South cooperation, being an important supplement to North-South cooperation, is an important way for developing countries to leverage their comparative advantages, cooperate with and assist one another and achieve common development. The UN development system should continue to support the good momentum of South-South Cooperation and explore new ways of thinking and new methods for taking South-South cooperation forward. The Chinese delegation encourages UNDP to make full use of its coordinating position within the UN development system and support South-South cooperation in areas of policy and resources. We will continue to support the UN Office for South-South cooperation in fully fulfilling its tasks.

Mr. Chairman,

The Chinese government has all along attached great importance to cooperation with UNDP and acknowledges positively its contributions in promoting economic and social development in China. The Chinese government stands ready to further deepen this cooperation under the Memorandum of Understanding on Strengthening Cooperation between the Chinese government and UNDP.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.