UNITED NATIONS GENERAL ASSEMBLY

Statement by H.E. Mr Isikia R Savua, Permanent Representative of Fiji to the United Nations and Chairman of the Pacific Islands Forum Group to the Fifth Committee on

Item 126: Administrative and Budgetary Aspects of the Financing of the United Nations Peacekeeping Operations

New York 13 May, 2003

Mr Chairman

I have the honour to speak today on behalf of the Pacific Islands Forum Group, namely Australia, Kiribati, Federated States of Micronesia, Marshall Islands, Nauru, New Zealand, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu, Vanuatu and my own country, Fiji.

I extend the PIF Group’s appreciation to Mr. Jean-Pierre Halbwachs for presenting the various reports on the Administrative and Budgetary aspects of the Financing of the United Nations Peacekeeping Operations. We also thank Ambassador Mselle, Chairman of the ACABQ, for his eloquent presentation of the consolidated report of the ACABQ (A/57/772).

Mr Chairman, the Pacific Islands Forum group attaches great importance to the significant role of peacekeeping operations for the maintenance of international peace and security. The Group considers peacekeeping operations as a core function of the United Nations, and hence wishes to reinforce the need to allocate adequate resources to all peacekeeping activities. Equally, we as member States must meet our obligations to pay our fair share of peacekeeping costs in full and on time.

We have read with interest the report of the Secretary-General (A/57/746) on the feasibility of consolidating the accounts of the various peacekeeping operations. We appreciate that there are a number of questions that will need to be addressed to facilitate the careful consideration of this proposal.

Whatever the outcome with respect to the treatment of peacekeeping accounts, our delegations would be very interested in streamlining the frequency and number of peacekeeping assessments. A simpler and more predictable system of peacekeeping assessments would be particularly beneficial for small and medium sized delegations and we look forward to informal consultations under this item.

Mr Chairman, the support account plays a vital role in ensuring field operations receive adequate backstopping and guidance from headquarters. In recent years we have significantly strengthened this capacity. Our delegations are, overall, satisfied with both the allocation of resources and performance of the Department of Peacekeeping Operations and other dimensions of peacekeeping support. But we agree that there remain one or two areas that require attention this year.

In particular, we support the proposal to establish a dedicated gender in peacekeeping advisory capacity in the Department of Peacekeeping Operations. The United Nations has done excellent work in the field on gender mainstreaming and it is essential that this experience be analysed and coordinated so that future peacekeeping operations can benefit from this experience. The gender mainstreaming strategy provides a compelling case for the necessity of this function and we are very encouraged that this has received the support of the ACABQ.

We continue, Mr Chairman, to be concerned that a small number of troop contributors have large sums owed to them by the UN for troop or contingent owned equipment costs. We appreciate that progress has been made over the past year in reducing these debts, which is very welcome. We would, however, urge the Secretary-General to continue efforts to streamline the reimbursement process and encourage all member States to meet their peacekeeping assessments in full so that troop contributors do not suffer lengthy delays in receiving these payments.

In closing, we would like to compliment the Secretariat on the new results based format of the budget and performance reports. The presentation for the first time of a peacekeeping overview report has been particularly useful for our delegations. We now have a single document which reflects the objectives, expected accomplishments and costs of all UN peacekeeping activities but which also touches on critical crosscutting issues such as training, oversight and recruitment. This is indeed very welcome.

Thank you.