(Check against delivery)
Statement by Mr. Toshihiro Aiki
Minister, Permanent Mission of Japan to the United Nations
Agenda Item 146:
Administrative and budgetary aspects of financing UNPKOs:
Report of the Senior Advisory Group
Fifth Committee
First part of the resumed session of the Sixty-Seventh Session
of the United Nations General Assembly
March 8, 2013
Mr. Chairman,
At the outset, my delegation would like to thank Ms. Ameerah Haq, Under-Secretary-General for Field Support, and Mr. Carlos Ruiz Massieu, Chair of the Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions for introducing their respective reports on the implementation of the report of the Senior Advisory Group on rates of reimbursement to troop-contributing countries and other related issues. My delegation also would like to express our gratitude to Madame Louise Fréchette, Chair of the Senior Advisory Group, and to the members of the group, for their report. I wish to briefly outline my delegation’s views on this issue.
Mr. Chairman,
I would first like to recall the origin of the Senior Advisory Group (SAG) on reimbursement to troop-contributing countries and other related issues. The SAG was established after Member States had gone through intense negotiations at the Fifth Committee over troop reimbursement rates for several years. The SAG aimed at finding a solution of this long-standing issue acceptable to both financial contributing countries on the one hand and troop and police contributing countries on the other. For this reason, the SAG consisted of representatives from troop contributors, major financial contributors, regional groups and eminent persons. Therefore, there is no doubt that it should be enjoying wide support from Member States as it strived to reflect their views and positions.
Mr. Chairman,
Thanks to the dedicated efforts of the members of the group, the SAG was able to agree on a historical report. Against this backdrop, we believe that it would be in the collective interest of all Member States to respect the work of the group as an integrated package; and, first and foremost, this Committee should expeditiously adopt a resolution that endorses the recommendations of the report of the SAG in its entirety.
Mr. Chairman,
Japan believes that the SAG report contains well-balanced recommendations, based on both fair reimbursement and promotion of better conditions for troop performance. These recommendations lay a solid ground for an equitable, predictable, and sustainable system to reimburse the costs for providing troops. In particular, I would like to highlight that the SAG recommends a system of reimbursement based on actual data on the common and essential additional costs of peacekeeping. Japan hopes that an interactive data-collection process from a representative sample of troop- and police-contributing countries will result in better quality data that will be obtained in a much quicker way than through the previous methodology.
Mr. Chairman,
In conclusion, I would like to reiterate and underline the fact that it is quite important for this Committee to endorse the SAG report at this first-resumed session, since the SAG recommendations are time-bound and the timing and the sequencing of the implementation of these recommendations should be kept in mind.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
