Permanent Mission of India
New York

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 Working Group on the Revitalization of the Work of the General Assembly Role and Authority of the General Assembly and the Working Methods

Statement by Ambassador Harish Parvathaneni, Permanent Representative

10 February 2026

Co-Chairs,

At the outset, I extend heartiest congratulations to both of you Ambassador Williams and Ambassador Feruta for your appointment as Co-Chairs and for organizing today’s meeting. I also wish to thank the Chairs of the Six Committees for their significant efforts on revitalization and review of the working methods. I would like to make the following points :

First, Universality and inter-governmental nature accord a pre-eminent position to the General Assembly. India reiterates that UNGA is a primary policy making and representative organ of the UN, both in letter and spirit. This must be acknowledged and respected by all. Resolution 79/327 reaffirms the central position of the GA as a chief deliberative, policy making and representative organ of the UN. Given its centrality, the General Assembly has a vital role in upholding the principles and purposes of the UN Charter and fulfilling UN’s core mandate along the peace and security, and development tracks.

Second, India takes positive note of the provisions in Resolution 79/327 that are aimed at improving the working methods and functioning of the General Assembly. Low-hanging fruits – such as biennialization or triennialization, rationalizing time-limits, clustering, preventing overlapping and duplication etc. - must be harvested at the earliest. I urge all member states to work together to achieve more comprehensive reform.

Third, UN80 is a promising platform for reform. Member states must not be constrained by their own vision of narrow interest. However, the reform must go beyond the revitalization of the General Assembly and cover other organs as well, particularly UN Security Council. Real and meaningful reform of the Security Council is necessary to make this principal organ relevant, contemporary, credible and effective.

Fourth, the GA may discharge its functions in close coordination with other principal organs of the UN, particularly the Security Council and ECOSOC. The endeavour needs to be on creating synergies, by avoiding duplication.

Fifth, there is greater room for building coherence and complementarities among the six Committees of the General Assembly. Mandates and mechanisms that have outlived their utility must be phased out through sunset clauses.

Sixth, an issue that needs focussed attention is the streamlining of work of the different committees and offices of the UN. I am grateful to PR of Thailand Ambassador Cherdchai, the Chair of the Third Committee who today explained how the number of statements by the various Interactive Dialogues and the Special Rapporteurs ballooned from 25 in 2008 to almost 80 in 2025. At the same time, he said that the Bureau of the Third Committee and the Bureau of the HRC were able to negotiate at 3 to 5 Dialogue reduction per year in Interactive Dialogues to be achieved until the 84^th Session. This is an underwhelming outcome of all the efforts of the two Bureaus. I think we cannot have a situation where almost half or two-thirds of the time of the 3^rd Committee goes towards the various mechanisms and processes that are centered in Geneva such as informal Interactive Dialogues and Special Rapporteurs, especially when the General Assembly has two decades ago specifically established the UN Human Rights Council as its subsidiary inter-governmental body focused on this task. In New York, we must see how best we can reclaim some of the Committee time and effort for our own focused agenda at our end.

Finally, as member states work towards reform and improvement, the effectiveness and impact of the development pillar cannot suffer. This is critical to countries of the Global South. UN mechanisms and resources that cater to specific development needs must be preserved. Prioritizing peace and security pillar must not lead to either an intended or a benign neglect of the development pillar.

2. In closing, I reiterate that India looks forward to working closely with other member states and contributing actively towards Revitalization of the General Assembly in this session.

I thank you, Co-Chairs.

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