Statements by Member States at meetings in February, March, and April 2018 of the General Assembly’s Ad Hoc Working Group on the Revitalization of the Work of the General Assembly
April 27, 2018
Norway
Referring to remarks made by others in previous meetings in this Working Group, Norway would like to fully support the proposal to start preparations for a high-level event to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the United Nations in 2020. Such an event could be an excellent opportunity to take stock of the state of the world and the role of the UN, including that of the General Assembly and our PGA.
I hope you will forgive me if this proposal seems a little off topic in today’s meeting. But we felt that it would be useful to make our views known, as an input to your work on the draft resolution.
March 20, 2018
EU (plus 8 or 9 East European states that align with the statement)
Candidate countries: Turkey, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, Albania.
Potential Candidate countries: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia.
Finally, the EU and its member states also support a timely preparation of the 75th anniversary of the UN. This would also provide the membership with a good opportunity to take stock of renewals and reforms and continue to work towards their thorough implementation. We have made major progress within the process of Revitalization of the work of the General Assembly, in which the Ad Hoc Working Group has played an important role, but much still remains to be done. The EU and its Member States will continue to engage in the most constructive way possible, maintain momentum on these important topics, and look very much ahead to the next two thematic debates organized in this group’s capacity.
March 9, 2018
Canada
. . . Second: It is not too early to focus on the commemoration of the 75th Anniversary of the United Nations, and how we might use that occasion to enhance the relevance of the General Assembly for the decades ahead.
This Working Group can prepare the way for the formal preparatory process by encouraging multi-stakeholder inputs and thinking creatively about what we hear.
Third: Civil society has become an essential partner in advancing the goals of the UN.
For example, achieving the Sustainable Development Goals will require the full engagement of all partners.
Civil society voices helpfully inform inter-governmental processes addressing human tights, humanitarian action and sustaining peace. Governments have much to learn from listening to the broadest possible range of voices across the full range of issues we face.
I would like to point to one important example that may help to inform our work in the Ad Hoc Working Group. We understand that a civil society-led consortium is leading a “UN 2020 Initiative” focused on a review and renewal of the UN.
We would encourage delegations to engage constructively with the consortium and to consider positively not only ambitious goals for the UN’s 75th Anniversary, but more generally how we can make the General Assembly’s work more inclusive of civil society’s contributions.
March 9, 2018
AHWG Co-Chair Vladimir Drobnjak at conclusion of the debate
Among many important proposals, and many important messages being put forward today, I would like to particularly underline one, I quote ‘“it is not too early to focus on the commemoration of the 75th anniversary of the United Nations.” We took a careful note of it as well as of all other proposals.
February 20, 2018
Uruguay
2020 will mark the 75th birthday of our organization. We must begin now to think about how we might visibly mark this anniversary and properly celebrate in a visible fashion our achievements, and we must look clearly at how we will continue to implement agenda 2030 and we must properly celebrate our achievements.