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G77 Ministers Call for UN Agency for South-South Cooperation

UNITED NATIONS, , Oct 5 2015 (IPS) - The 134-member Group of 77, the largest single coalition of developing countries at the United Nations, has reaffirmed the overarching objective of eradicating poverty, “which remains the greatest global challenge and an indispensable requirement for sustainable development.”

At its 39th annual ministerial meeting, held recently at the United Nations, the G77 reiterated that poverty eradication is a central imperative of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and emphasized the need to address poverty as a multidimensional phenomenon.

The ministers stressed the importance of eradicating poverty “in all its forms and dimensions” in order to truly leave no one behind. They also strongly supported the view that the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development should reinforce the commitment of the international community to eradicate poverty by 2030.

The ministerial declaration “strongly recommended” the consolidation of existing mechanism of South-South Cooperation and called for the establishment of the United Nations specialized agency for South-South Cooperation to be located in a developing country.

The Ministers stressed the importance of adequate Means of Implementation to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, and called upon developed countries to agree and commit to a new phase of international cooperation through a strengthened and scaled-up global partnership for development.

This should be the centerpiece and anchor for “both completing the unfinished business” of the MDGs and other internationally agreed development goals and implementing the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, taking into account the lessons learnt from the gaps in the implementation of MDGs.

The Ministers affirmed that States have, in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations and the principles of international law, the sovereign right to exploit their own resources pursuant to their own environmental and developmental policies, and the responsibility to ensure that activities within their jurisdiction or control do not cause damage to the environment of other States or of areas beyond the limits of national jurisdiction.

The declaration also reaffirmed that the right of peoples and nations to permanent sovereignty over the natural wealth and resources must be exercised in the interest of their national development and of the well-being of the people of the State concerned.

The Ministers stressed that the enabling international environment may be achieved through the provision of additional financing resources, technology transfer and diffusion with concessional and preferential terms, capacity-building, strengthened data collection and analyzing capacity, pro-development trade policies, equitable and effective participation of developing countries in global economic governance and adequate means of implementation for developing countries.

They asserted that a strengthened and scaled up Global Partnership for Development is critical for developing countries in delivering the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

The Ministers reaffirmed the paramount importance of Official Development Assistance (ODA) in supporting the sustainable development needs of countries and regions, in particular African countries, least developed countries (LDCs), landlocked developing countries (LLDCs), small island developing states (SIDS) and the middle-income countries (MICs).

In this context, they urged developed countries to commit to implement fully their official development assistance commitments in keeping with their previously made undertakings and to upscale these efforts to play a meaningful role in eradicating poverty in all its forms.

The Ministers called for the Global Partnership for Development to be revitalized and re-invigorated.

The Ministers stressed that Climate finance must not be double counted as ODA and therefore must be considered as separate from and additional to ODA.

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