Mr. President,

The Chinese delegation thanks Executive Director Mr. Lake for his statement in which he reviewed the work of UNICEF and presented his outlook going forward. In this connection, I would like to make the following observations.

First, China commends UNICEF, under the leadership of Executive Director Lake, for its pro-active response to the ever-changing and increasingly daunting international developmental and humanitarian challenges, and for its positive progress in implementing its Strategic Plan 2014-2017 and the resolution on QCPR on U.N. Operational Activities for Development. We commend also UNICEF's achievements in advancing children's rights and equity, promoting gender equality and women's empowerment, and enhancing innovation and evaluation. We appreciate the positive efforts by UNICEF in addressing humanitarian challenges and combating Ebola virus. We hope that UNICEF will continue to be guided by the principle of national ownership in the new cycle of the strategic plan, base its work on the needs of member states, work to increase the capacity for self-development of program countries so as to effectively help developing countries achieve long-term, balanced and sustainable development.

Second, children and youth represent the hope and future of our world; they will be energetic actors in the global endeavor for sustainable development. We are now in the crucial phase of achieving the MDGs and formulating post 2015 development agenda. We need to both take into account the present reality, and more importantly, look to the future. On their paths towards sustainable development, developing countries face such difficulties as inadequacy of funds, lack of technological means and weak capacity, and urgently need more effective assistance from the international community. We hope that UNICEF will use this crucial phase as an opportunity to improve the external environment for the healthy growth of children of the world, and continue to focus on the needs and challenges of children in LDCs and Africa as well as children belonging to the most vulnerable groups in developing countries. We hope that UNICEF will steadily increase assistance to developing countries in areas such as capacity building, thus playing a bigger role in supporting their acceleration of development and realization of balanced and sustainable development.

Third, stable and growing resources, in particular core resources, serve as an effective guarantee for UNICEF to fulfill its mission in a fair, just and flexible manner and respond timely and effectively to the needs of program countries and humanitarian emergencies. We appreciate the fact that UNICEF is the first among the U.N. funds to act according to the QCPR resolution to engage in discussions on the critical mass of core resources and carry out the structural dialogue on results of financing for UNICEF's Strategic Plan 2014-2017. We welcome UNICEF's initiative to launch a new open online platform, which, as an important measure of transparency, will be used to track program outcomes and resources.

The Chinese Delegation agrees in principle to the updated financial estimates of UNICEF strategic plan 2014-2017. We commend the achievements by UNICEF in financial management and private sector fundraising against the backdrop of uncertain global economic outlook and frequent humanitarian crises that caused a sharp increase of children's needs and mounting difficulties in financing. China has noticed that in 2013, growth of other resources exceeded that of regular resources, and the rise of regular resource donations by donor governments was levelling off. China calls on the international community to make joint efforts to increase support to UNICEF core resources, and enhance the flexibility and predictability of the funding from its non-core resources. Meanwhile, we hope UNICEF will fully leverage its resources, improve efficiency in funds utilization, work on the basis of actual needs to address issues of the biggest concern to program countries, and pay attention to decreasing the operational cost of the organization.

Mr. President,

The Chinese Government values its long-term cooperation with UNICEF. We thank UNICEF for its disaster relief support to the Chinese government after the earthquake in Ludian County of Yunan Province, and for its help to reduce the impact of the disaster on the local women's and children's health care. China looks forward to further strengthening cooperation with UNICEF. We'll take the commemoration of the 25th anniversary of the CRC as a new starting point in our efforts to contribute to the promotion of the survival, development and protection of children of the world, especially the healthy development of the most vulnerable groups of children.

Thank you Mr. President.