STATEMENT BY PRAKASH GUPTA, FIRST SECRETARY AT THE 2014 UNITED NATIONS PLEDGING CONFERENCE FOR DEVELOPMENT ACTIVITIES AT THE 69TH SESSION OF THE UNITED NATIONS GENERAL ASSEMBLY (10 NOVEMBER 2014 )
Mr President,
At the outset, allow me to extend our sincere felicitations to you on your election as Chair of the 2014 United Nations Pledging Conference. We wish you all success and hope that under your stewardship the Pledging Conference would achieve even greater results.
Mr President
Both in the crafting of the post 2015 development agenda, as well as in the QCPR resolution on operational activities for development, we have collectively recognised eradication of poverty as the greatest global challenge and urged the UN Development System that all its programmes and projects must focus on addressing this very challenge as their underlying objective.
In pursuit of this objective, any stasis in resource mobilisation or a decline in funding to the development activities of the UN poses a threat to the viability of operational activities and severely circumscribes its ability to work at the country level.
As a developing country, while India has its own plate full of developmental challenges to be addressed, even then, we have always attempted to contribute to increasing the availability of core resources for development activities of the United Nations system.
In keeping with this long-standing tradition, I now have the honour to announce India's pledges of contributions for operational activities of development for the year 2015.
This list is not exhaustive and we shall be undertaking further commitments to other entities in due course of time.
- United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) - USD 4,500,000
- United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) - USD 900,000
- United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) - USD 500,000
- United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) - USD 100,000
- World Food Programme (WFP) - USD 1,920,000 (Biennium 2015-2016)
- UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) - USD 1,000,000
- United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) - USD 100,000
- United Nations Commission on Human Settlements (UNCHS) Programme (HABITAT) - USD 100,000
- Voluntary Fund for Technical Co-operation - USD 100,000
- Voluntary Trust Fund on Contemporary Forms of Slavery - USD 25,000
- Voluntary Trust Fund for Victims of Torture - USD 25,000
- UN Volunteers - USD 15,000
- UNCPCJF - USD 3,000
In addition, we also have a standing 5 year commitment of USD 5 million towards UN Women, of which, our fifth and final installment of USD one million was recently handed over by India's External Affairs Minister to the Executive Director of UN Women earlier last month. This took our over all contribution to USD 5 million to UN Women since its inception.
I thank you, Mr President.
**************
.jpeg)
.png)
