Mr. Vice President,

A year has elapsed since we last discussed ways of enhancing the process of an integrated and coordinated implementation and follow- up to major UN conferences and summits which we regard as of critical importance for propelling development and the eradication of poverty. Indeed, it is increasingly recognized that the continuum of major conferences and summits of the 1990s represent the major multilateral response and corrective to the unpredictability and uncertainties of globalization.

My delegation therefore greatly welcomes the three comprehensive reports by the Secretary-General on the progress achieved by the United Nations system in this regard at the intergovernmental, inter-agency and country levels.

We believe that to be effective such coordination and integration should take place at all 3 main levels, intergovernmental, regional and national. It is our challenge therefore in this substantive session to ensure that the United Nations system provides adequate integrated support to the governments to enable them to effectively translate the internationally agreed goals and objectives into a consistent set of national strategies and policies.

In this process, the ECOSOC has clearly an important and central role to play. In fact the Council has already achieved a certain measure of progress in this direction. Four years ago the ECOSOC, spurred on by the restructuring and revitalization exercise of the UN in the social and economic fields, reasserted its mandated roles in the areas of coordination, guidance and oversight. Indeed, the ECOSOC has taken the lead in responding to the newly emerging development agenda. In doing so, it has identified an integrated set of common themes and has provided guidelines at the inter-governmental and inter-agency levels.

At the inter-governmental level, it is important that the Council continue to focus on the coordination and guidance functions through the strengthening of coordination and complementarity among its functional commissions, the bureaus of the functional commissions and the executive Boards of the Funds and Programmes as well as the preaparatory committee of each global conference to ensure a coherent follow-up to such conferences. It is also important, in this context, that the Council calls upon the Functional Commissions and the Secretariat to ensure substantive interaction during the preparations of the five-year reviews. Thus, the reports of the Preparatory Committees should be exchanged among them. The Secretariat should make sure that the relevant Functional Commissions is circulated. Taken together, these measures have greatly facilitated the United Nations system in its efforts to support governments in their formidable task of translating the internationally agreed outcomes of the various conferences into a consistent set of national strategies, policies and programmes.

Nevertheless, despite such progress in the right direction and though the ECOSOC sits at the apex of the United Nations activities in the economic and social fields, it is still a long way from realizing its full potential in system-wide coordination. First, even the meaning of coordination is not yet settled and there is little or no acceptance of an effective means of measuring progress in the implementation of the conference outcomes. The continuing lack of such measurements leaves the impact of our strategies uncertain.

As to the role of functional commissions to enhance the coordination efforts to follow-up the conferences, while they possess great expertise in their own particular areas of competence, it is the Council that is best suited to overseeing the system-wide implementation of conference follow-up. The Council also represents the best source for identifying and examining cross-cutting issues. In this regard, it is important that the functional commissions ensure that their activities and outcomes are widely disseminated. For this purpose, we believe that the ongoing ECOSOC dialogue process with all the bureaus of the Functional Commissions should also address the need to coordinate the preparations for the forthcoming five year reviews. This would greatly help to ensure that all relevant information available in the system is fully utilized in the preparatory processes.

The informal meeting of ECOSOC on basic indicators held last May has again underlined the importance of basic indicators as one possible tool for measuring progress. The meeting has also identified the crucial need for developing countries to strengthen their national capacities as well as the means for implementation which could provide developing countries with an enabling environment to implement the goals of global conferences and summits.

One such means is financial resources. It is now well recognized that the effective implementation of the conference's outcomes requires considerable levels of such resources. Much of the available resources come from the public and private sectors at the national levels. But there is still an acute need for substantial new and additional funding if the implementation of the outcomes is to be moved forward. The fact remains that if the provision of adequate resources is left wanting, all other components of the strategies can be totally undermined. This situation is particularly aggravated by the ongoing decline in ODA which the greater majority of developing countries depend upon. We therefore agree with the Report that ODA should constitute the main source of external funding for the developing countries and, in particular, the LDCs and the Council must continue to address the question of declining resources for conference implementation. Moreover, in light of declining ODA it is crucial that ECOSOC links financing to the goals and targets of the Conference.

The informal meeting on basic indicators has also identified the dire need to strengthen national statistical capacity in the developing countries as well as to strengthen coordination at the international level. This is particularly pertinent in light of the proliferation of indicators required by the international organizations which has led to duplication in the creation of indicators and the collection of information which greatly overburdens the national statistical offices.

As to the modalities for holding a review by the Council in the year 2000 on progress made in the promotion of an integrated and coordinated implementation and follow-up to major United Nations conferences and summits, we must be very clear as to what specific objectives are to be expected from this exercise.

We recognize that the Council's main contribution has been in reviewing cross-cutting themes derived from the major conferences. We also see poverty eradication and the promotion of the well-being of people everywhere as an overriding objective of the Council's efforts to ensure an integrated and coordinated follow-up. In lieu of its coordinating role it is important that the Council strikes a balance between the specificity of conference outcomes and the need to address cross-cutting issues.

Following the implementation of GA resolutions 50/227 and 52/12B we have already reviewed the methods of works of some of the Council's subsidiary bodies and still continue to review those which have not been reviewed. In this regard it is encouraging to note that progress has been made. It should also to be understood that the Council's review in the year 2000 is aimed at harmonizing and rationalizing the progress made in the promotion of an integrated and coordinated implementation and follow-up of such conferences. One such possibilities is to identify the cross-cutting themes considered so far in the context of the follow-up to conferences.

In addition, in view of the Council's role in reviewing the cross- cutting themes of the conferences, we support the recommendation of the Council to conduct an overall review of progress made on the various cross-cutting themes and the United Nations' support for implementing the conference's objectives by the year 2000.