(As delivered)
Statement by Mr. Katsuhiko Imada
Counsellor, Permanent Mission of Japan to the United Nations
Agenda Item 148: Administrative and budgetary aspects of financing
United Nations Peacekeeping Operations - “Cross-cutting”
Second part of the resumed session of the 70th Session of the General Assembly
9 May 2016
Mr. Chairman,
At the outset, I wish to express my appreciation to Assistant-Secretary-General and Controller Ms. Bettina Tucci Bartsiotas, Assistant-Secretary-General for Human Resources Management Ms. Carole Wamuyu Wainaina, Chair of the Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions (ACABQ) Mr. Carlos Ruiz Massieu, and Under-Secretary-General for Internal Oversight Services Ms. Heidi Mendoza for introducing their respective reports.
Mr. Chairman,
Japan attaches great importance to the Peacekeeping Operations of the United Nations and the successful implementation of their mandates for the maintenance of international peace and security. The Committee is going to consider the budgets for peacekeeping operations, and the proposed level of overall operations for next period is $8.2 billion. Although this figure is slightly less by 0.3% than the current budget level of 2015/16 period, the trend of the budget level over $8 billion, which the Secretary-General once described as “unprecedented”, seems to be still continuing.
The aforementioned minute reduction in the proposed overall budget level due to the downsizing of some operations is mostly offset by increases or expansions of deployments of uniformed personnel in other more complex missions. This Committee needs to devote its available time and appropriate amount of energy to consider the budget proposals before us and to take the necessary actions to turn them into meaningful documents.
My delegation is of the view that the Member States should be ready to provide sufficient resources and capacity to the UN PKOs. However, taking into account the severe financial situations of many Member States including my country, the need for the efficient, effective and accountable management of operations cannot be overemphasized. Technological advancements in various fields may be expected to support UN PKOs in more efficient, effective and accountable way, but it is up to us – the Member States and the Secretariat in tandem, to ensure proper cost/benefit analyses and planning as well as coordinated management, while maintaining integrity and without compromising the performance in mandate implementation. In this light, my delegation considers the discussion on cross-cutting issues to be very important in addressing a number of critical matters pertaining to the overall operations of UN PKOs.
Mr. Chairman,
Budget and performance presentation is one of the issues that my delegation considers important. While we understand that transitions and adaptations with regard to support services are necessary, the movement of budget classes and groups within a mission budget as well as between different mission budgets makes it difficult for us to gather a clear picture of the overall financial requirements and requirement changes. Furthermore, performance reports do not fully provide us with the degree of the redeployment of resources between expenditure classes and groups. My delegation is interested in discussing these matters with the view to exploring a way to further enhance the transparency of the peace keeping budget through better presentation of these valuable documents. Other issues that my delegation regards as important include some other aspects in budget and performance presentation, the benefit of Umoja, supply chain management and ICT related requirements. My delegation looks forward to discussing these issues in the informal consultations.
Mr. Chairman,
It is most regrettable that the issue of sexual exploitation and abuse is again on our agenda. It is an issue of great concern that allegations of sexual exploitation and abuse persist in some peacekeeping operations, notably in the Central African Republic. While we strongly support the Organization’s “zero-tolerance policy”, and welcome Security Council Resolution 2272, my delegation looks forward to receiving further explanations and updates from the Secretariat, especially from recently appointed Special Coordinator Ms. Jane Holl Lute this afternoon, on this matter.
Mr. Chairman, Distinguished Delegates,
Last year, this Committee successfully reached an agreement on a resolution on cross-cutting issues after having gone two years without such a resolution. My delegation hopes that this Committee will continue to work on this subject with the same positive and productive spirit as we had last year.
My delegation looks forward to discussing this important agenda item and I assure you Mr. Chairman that we will actively and constructively participate in the negotiations with a view to achieving feasible and practical improvements in the management of the UN PKOs.
I thank you, Mr. Chairman.
