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Statement by Mr. Hajime Kishimori
Counsellor, Permanent Mission of Japan to the United Nations

 

Agenda item 134: Program Budget 2016-2017:

Information and Communication Technology

 

Main Part of the Seventieth Session

Of Fifth Committee of the General Assembly

17 November 2015

 

Mr. Chairman,

 

At the outset, I would like to thank Ms. Atefeh Riazi, Assistant-Secretary-General and Chief Information Technology Officer (CITO), Office of Information and Communications Technology, for introducing the report of the Secretary General on the status of implementation of the information and communications technology (ICT) strategy for the United Nations, contained in document A/70/364 and Corrigendum 1. My appreciation also goes to Mr. Carlos Ruiz Massieu, Chair of the ACABQ for introducing its report on the same issue. I wish to briefly comment on that matter in the following statement.

 

Mr. Chairman,

 

Japan has been continuously supporting various initiatives to transform and modernize the business of the United Nations, such as Umoja/ERP, IPSAS and human resource reform. ICT is also one of these important initiatives, and therefore we give it our full support. Now that Umoja has been successfully rolled out here in New York, my delegation is convinced that the role of ICT is becoming ever more crucial .    

 

To that end, my delegation concurs with the view of ACABQ that further consolidation and coherence are needed throughout the different departments in the U.N. including in the field such as in PKOs.

 

On this note, my delegation would like to recall OP18 of A/RES/69/262 in which the Secretary General is expected to ensure that all Secretariat entities report to the Chief Information Technology Officer on issues relating to all ICT activities, resource management, standards, etc. Though it may have taken some time for them to change their working culture, we trust that the resolution will be fully implemented in due course.

 

Mr. Chairman,

 

My delegation believes that efficiency and transparency are the two most important elements to making the ICT strategy work. As suggested by the report of the ACABQ, it is time to centralize the various efforts to yield efficiencies in the provision of ICT services, which should be reflected as reduced requirements in the overall budget projections. Transparency should also be secured through further clarification and detailed explanations of the indicative five-year budget projection. 

 

With these matters in mind, I would like to assure you that my delegation will participate actively and constructively in the coming discussions.

 

 

Thank you.