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Mr. President,
I thank you for this opportunity to share Pakistan perspective on the contribution of North-South, South-South and Triangular Cooperation and ICT for the Development to the Implementation of the Post 2015 Development Agenda.
I particularly welcome the thoughts expressed by Ms. Helen Clark, Administrator of the UNDP, in her keynote address.
It is evident from her remarks that South-South cooperation, in particular, is a growing and dynamic phenomenon. It is worth recalling that a few decades ago, South-South cooperation meant promoting technical cooperation among developing countries. Since then it has come a long way and has emerged as an process that is vital to confronting the challenges faced by developing nations, and is also making an increasingly important contribution to their development.
Mr. President,
South-South cooperation is not a substitute for North-South cooperation. A strong partnership of South should also complement our relationship with the North and vice versa. Triangular cooperation is therefore a useful and cost effective tool for furthering our objectives.
The challenge, therefore, is for all partners in the South as well as from the North, to translate the new dynamism of the South into a force for the realization of an equitable and universal development paradigm.
In sum, these facets of development cooperation must be seamlessly weaved into a renewed, strengthened and deepened global partnership for development beyond 2015.
Mr. President,
Important lesson can be learnt from the implementation of MDG8 or the present global partnership for development.
Pakistan acknowledges that MDG did galvanize efforts towards improving the delivery of aid, increasing market access, providing debt relief, improving access to ICT and essential medicines.
Yet, there is little doubt left that those efforts have been deficient, systemic gaps and persistent shortcomings have outplayed the level of ambition needed.
More importantly, the framework perpetuated a donor-recipient relationship that did to achieve the transformative impact we all agreed to at the cusp of 21st century.
This all must change. This cannot continue if we wish to achieve the desired results from the post 2015 Development Agenda.
Even more importantly and without discounting the importance of South-South cooperation, the emphasis by some policy pundits that panacea lay in forging South-South cooperation alone is not only a misplaced but could also potentially disrupt the implementation of post 2015 process.
It is our firm view that developed countries must fulfill their commitments for North-South cooperation. The North has an obligation both in their own national interests but also in the interest of global harmony, equity and development, to fulfill their commitment through North-South cooperation.
Mr. President,
A revamped and broadened global partnership for development would be critical in order to create a development-friendly global economic environment.
Reform and better regulation of the international financial system, removal of restrictions to transfer of technologies, and reform of the global economic governance, including the Bretton Woods Institutions, to give more voice to the developing countries are important objectives to ensure rapid, sustained and inclusive growth.
In concrete terms, some additional areas of cooperation should include labor migration, investment, enhanced partnership with the private sector and new mechanism to support the flow of FDI into key economic sectors such as transport, agriculture, energy, infrastructure, communication and ICT.
Mr. President,
In more concrete terms, we should include migration, partnerships with the private sector, new institutional framework to promote FDI in poor developing countries, as components of a renewed, deepened and broadened global partnership for development.
Recent reviews and empirical estimates suggest that the elimination of all barriers to international migration could generate considerable economic gains. Even a partial removal of these barriers could produce large benefits for the world economy. Migration flows leading to net emigration rates of 7 per cent and 10 per cent in poor regions would create global efficiency gains worth about $7 trillion and $15 trillion, respectively. Some studies have indicated that even small increase in migration would yield between $0.3 trillion and $1.6 trillion.
In the case of the Foreign Direct Investment (FDI), we need institutional mechanism that can help avert private sector risk perception. We believe a renewed efforts should be made to strengthened World Bank led Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA), which thus far covers only political risk insurance (guarantees) for projects in developing member countries. The role of MIGA should now be enhanced to cover currency risk and other regulatory risks faced by the international investors especially in the area of energy, agriculture, infrastructure, transport and the ICT.
Finally, Pakistan believes that time has come for the United Nations to forge a closer and cooperative partnership with the private sector. It is important to institutionalize the role of private sector in the implementation of the post 2015 development agenda. To this end, a renewed global partnership should also include establishing the UN Partnership Facility as proposed by the UN Secretary General.
Mr. President,
A future global partnership comprising the North-South, South-South and Triangular cooperation will need to be based on a compelling narrative around a truly transformational global agenda that propels the globe towards sustainable development with an accountability framework that tracks progress in the implementation of the global partnership along side the achievement of the sustainable development goals.
I thank you Mr. President.