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Mr. President, First of all, my delegation would like to express its appreciation to the Secretary-General for his important report, “Strengthening of the United Nations: an agenda for further change.” I will make a number of general comments, and then turn to some more specific ones. Indonesia pays particular interest to the subject of reform of the United Nations. There is no doubt that every report of this nature is a significant milestone in our efforts to turn the United Nations into the organization that was intended by the founding fathers, and recently renewed by world leaders in the Millennium Declaration in 2000. It is our view, Mr. President, that the demands of multilateralism today commend the effective reform of the United Nations to all its members, as well as to everyone that is interested in peace and human progress. Reform of the United Nations, as an intergovernmental organ, should continue to strengthen our ability and our capacity in this direction. In this connection, it is important to reflect on the fact that United Nations reform has been with us now for some years, and we think that that time-span is long enough for us to begin to reflect critically on the process, and on the benefits of it. In his summary at the beginning of the report, the Secretary-General describes the Organization as “evolving with the times.” In order to ensure that this process continues, towards making the United Nations “more efficient, more open and more creative,” Indonesia would like to stress the need for Member States to remain conscious that reform of the United Nations should be treated as reform of the entire Organization as one, and not reform of parts of it at a time. Unless such a holistic, comprehensive approach is made a cardinal principle in the reform process, we run the risk of finding out at tremendous cost down the road, that key areas of the Organization’s work have been left behind. We must also be careful to note here, however, that it is not enough to continue to work on the basis of proposals and intentions, or to engage in reform for reform’s sake; in the past, there have been several proposals that have not brought real reform. The delegation of Indonesia firmly believes that reforming the Organization to enable it perform at optimum efficiency may well begin with the way that the United Nations organizes its work. To that end, we support the proposals made by the Secretary-General in this report aimed at changing and harmonizing procedures and processes within the organization that will make improvement possible. Having said this, Mr. President, I will now turn to specifics. In the area of peace and security, it is of the utmost importance that reform efforts are closely targeted at eliminating areas of current multilateral cooperation that militate against progress. To put it another way, we must continue to refine and modify our collective and individual behavior, within the context of the United Nations, to enhance those structures and processes that contribute to peace and security. In this connection, we concur with the observation of the Secretary-General that no reform of the United Nations would be complete without reform of the Security Council. If the Security Council is to continue to enjoy worldwide credibility, which it critically needs for its work, not only must its size, composition and working methods be reviewed, so must the capacity of the Council to act, to do so promptly, and to be seen to be employing the same standards on every agenda item that comes before it. Indeed, the ability of the Security Council to reform itself comprehensively, as is being demanded by the generality of the membership, is crucial to its credibility. The immediate and most obvious implication of this is that the credibility of the Council carries over into the willingness and readiness of Member States to implement its resolutions and decisions or make other contributions towards peace, especially in conflict situations. Even more important, the reform of the General Assembly, as the most important multilateral floor of the United Nations, must continue. Its overloaded agenda must be reordered and balanced by accommodating new and emerging issues so that the General Assembly is stronger and more meaningful in facing new challenges. In this regard, it is imperative to strengthen the General Assembly’s relationship vis-ŕ-vis other main organs of the United Nations, such as the Security Council and ECOSOC so that the General Assembly will be able to give more added value to the work of the Organization. Mr. President, It is now a truism that peace and development are related. It is not possible to have one without the other. Given that international peace and security is the first concern of the United Nations, our commitment to reform is our commitment to development, and therefore to peace. All our intergovernmental processes, anchored on the Charter of the United Nations and the Millennium Declaration, must emphasize the developmental imperative as a condition for fulfilling our obligation to peace. Similarly, we must continue to keep in mind our responsibilities and commitment to a number of social and economic objectives. These are specific, and in the case of the Millennium Declaration, time-tied goals. In the opinion of my delegation, our reform initiatives and methods must not only be motivated and inspired by those objectives, but also respond to them. This is because they are real, and concern real people somewhere, real people that are waiting for the United Nations to fulfill their expectations. As a result of this, therefore, we must keep in mind, in the reform process, that reform is not for its own sake. Reform is justified by a more basic objective, to enhance our work and deliver the benefits of development and peace. Therefore, the programme of works which should be organized around the objectives set down in the Millennium Declaration as well as around the results of the main conferences, need to support the Organization’s efforts in the development field. In this regard, we welcome the proposal by the Secretary-General for the creation of an addi tional position of Assistant Secretary-General to support policy coherence and management in the Department of Economic and Social Affairs. We, however, would like to emphasize that this creation should ensure that the development programme is the top priority of the Organization. My delegation notes the attention paid by the Secretary-General to issues and activities concerning Africa. In particular, we support the proposal to assign the Secretary-General’s Adviser for Special Assignments in Africa the responsibilities of coordinating and guiding the reports and input for Africa-related matters in the Secretariat and to transfer under his responsibility the resources currently allocated to the Office of the Special Coordinator for Africa and the Least Developed Countries. Mr. President, Human rights, the promotion and protection of which is a bedrock requirement under the Charter for the realization of our vision of a just and peaceful world, is a subject of special interest to my delegation. To that end, we support the proposal by which the United Nations High Commissioner for Human rights will consult with treaty bodies on new streamlined reporting procedures and submit recommendations to the Secretary-General. Similarly, in connection with the improvement of special procedures, we also support the proposal by which the Commissioner will undertake a review and make recommendations towards enhancing their effectiveness and improving the support provided. My delegation understands the need to have more programmatic action in the field level that would integrate human rights components. Many countries have started to adopt upstream projects in the context of the Country Cooperation Framework. However, the principle of such projects being country-driven should be the main consideration of developing a project at the country level. Therefore, we would like to express our concern if there is a proposal concerning a global approach to include human rights elements in the field level which might not be in the priority areas of each Member State as each country has its own individual characteristics. Moreover, this would be contrary to the principle of country-driven in implementing operational activities for development. Mr. President, Taking all this into consideration, it is the view of my delegation that the proposal to simplify and improve planning and budgeting merits consideration towards eliminating some of the burdens of the current arrangements. However, we would like to underline that the streamlined mechanism should not compromise the purpose of carrying out priority programmes mandated by Member States. With particular reference to the proposal to merge the intergovernmental review of plans and budgets now being performed by both the Fifth Committee and the Committee for Programme and Coordination under the aegis of the Fifth Committee, we would suggest that careful consideration be exercised in this matter. Turning to human resource management, we support the initiatives of the Secretary-General towards the attainment of a word-class staff to enable the Secretariat deliver adequate service to Member States. We, however, would like to emphasize that any human resource policy adopted by the Secretary-General needs to achieve the imperatives of geographical diversity and gender balance, without compromising excellence in the quality of personnel that is the strength of the Organization. Mr. President, We believe that it is the responsibility of the Member States to consider the recommendations of the Secretary-General contained in this report carefully, and to support fully the decisions arrived at by the General Assembly. It is important to ensure that process is Member States-driven, not Secretariat-driven. We must further make certain that the process is transparent and participatory, and with that in mind, Indonesia stands ready and willing to offer its full participation. I thank you.
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