51ÁÔÆæ

Mr. Chair,
Excellencies, distinguished delegates, and friends,

Good morning to all of you.

I congratulate you, Mr. Chair and members of the Bureau on assuming the stewardship of this Committee at such a consequential moment for our Organization. I thank you for your warm words of welcome.

I also recognize our Controller Mr. Ramanathan, who is with us today, and his dedicated team for the expert advice and tireless effort and support on which the Committee’s deliberations critically depend.

For me, being here carries a special meaning.

More than forty years ago, as a young diplomat, I began following the work of this Committee from the perspective of a Member State. I was one of you.

Later, during my twenty-five years in the Secretariat, like Mr. Controller, I gained insights into the functioning of this Committee from the Secretariat’s point of view.

More recently, as a policymaker, I have seen how decisions of this Committee translate into results on the ground.

Many things have changed in the past four decades, but one thing remains the same: every part of the United Nations depends on the work of this Committee.

You are, in a very real sense, the circulatory system of the Organization, deciding on the resources that sustain our work.

If the other Committees are where we make promises, the Fifth Committee is where we determine whether those promises will be kept.

Your consideration of the programme budget, the scale of assessments, human resources, conference management and oversight is therefore not merely technical. Your work critically affects the functioning, effectiveness and credibility of our Organization.

Allow me to offer five reflections.

First, financial sustainability, mandate discipline and accountability must go together.

Timely, full and unconditional payment of assessed contributions is essential. Liquidity is not simply an accounting matter. When resources do not arrive, planning stalls, recruitment freezes and mandates adopted with ambition fall short in implementation.

At the same time, the scale of assessments must continue to embody fairness, solidarity and capacity to pay.

Our contributions come ultimately from people in every Member State. We therefore have a solemn responsibility to account for every dollar and direct it towards meaningful results.

This responsibility applies equally to the mandates we create.

This concern is not new. I repeat it in all Committees, and I said it in my inaugural speech. In 1949, barely four years after the founding of the United Nations, the General Assembly adopted resolution 310 (IV) on the proliferation and overlapping of programmes. It warned that multiplying activities, projects, meetings and subsidiary bodies could weaken effectiveness, overburden Member States and divert limited resources from agreed priorities. It called instead for greater concentration of effort, clearer prioritization, simpler structures and more disciplined use of resources.

Seventy-seven years later, that guidance remains strikingly relevant today. More than 85 per cent of active mandates have contained no provision for their review or termination.

Resolution 80/251 now offers Member States additional tools to improve mandate design, implementation, reporting and review.

If we create mandates, we must fully justify them in terms of their necessity and resource them to ensure their implementation. If resources are constrained, we must prioritize. Ambition without capacity becomes an empty promise-and every empty promise diminishes trust.

Second, reform must go deeper than rearranging structures.

Reform cannot become an exercise in institutional game of Lego: taking one piece from here, placing it somewhere else, putting blocks together, changing a name.

Moving posts may produce savings. Merging units may reduce duplication, and there are merits. But unless we examine the underlying logic of what we do, we may alter the organizational chart without significantly improving the Organization.

Let me therefore leave a few questions for your reflection.

Have we examined the resolutions adopted in a single year to determine how many paragraphs are repeated across various resolutions-and how much could be consolidated or rationalized?

Have we compared thematic reports across several consecutive years to examine how much substantive analysis has changed beyond updated statistics-and how much resources we devote to producing those technical updates?

Why should delegates consider SG’s report in October which depend on information that may already be eight or nine months old, when technology could provide secure, validated and continuously updated information on a real time basis? And how much resources do we spend to produce those reports?

And have we considered whether a United Nations career reflects the modern human-resource practices of the world’s best-performing organizations? Should we not place greater emphasis on performance, new skills, managed transitions and ability to bring expertise both into-and out of-the Organization?

These questions are not conclusions. They are invitations to undertake the deeper diagnosis that meaningful transformation requires.

Third, efficiency and effectiveness must ultimately be judged by results on the ground.

I have seen up close in the Rohingya camps in Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh, how the country team is adapting to funding reductions through innovative choices. A significant number of functions previously performed by international personnel were localized. Qualified national personnel maintained — and, in some cases, improved — the quality of services at approximately one fifth of the cost or less.

This is not an argument for indiscriminate substitution. Not at all. It is an argument for recognizing local knowledge, investing in national capacity and asking, in every context, how each dollar can deliver the greatest possible benefit.

The real test of reform is not whether an organigram becomes smaller. It is the delivery that ultimately counts. It is whether a refugee receives protection, a child receives food, a mediator reaches a conflict before violence escalates, and communities are better able to shape their own future.

Fourth, the physical condition of our premises must reflect the dignity of this Organization.

Please take a look at the sorry state of seating facilities in this conference room. Some chairs and seats in the General Assembly Hall, and I can see on top of the hall, and other conference rooms are worn, damaged or torn. Heads of State and Government, Ministers, Permanent Representatives and delegates, yourselves use these facilities every day.

This is not merely a matter of appearance. These rooms are the principal workplaces of multilateral diplomacy. They are where Member States negotiate peace, development, human rights and the stewardship of this Organization. Their condition should reflect the dignity of the United Nations and the respect owed to the representatives of its Member States.

I call upon the Committee to address this matter on a priority basis and to fast-track a practical solution. I intend to meet with the Bureau and the relevant departments as early as possible and technical experts to identify what can be done immediately, responsibly and cost-effectively.

Fifth, and finally, we must ensure sustainable support for the Office of the President of the General Assembly.

Forty years ago, I joined the Cabinet of the President of the 41st session of the UNGA as a newly minted member. Over the ensuing decades, I have personally witnessed substantial expansion of the scale and scope of the President’s responsibilities. Yet the Office receives only a tiny, and I repeat, a tiny amount of regular-budget support : only currently only eight out of forty posts are funded by the regular budget. The PGA’s office relies heavily on voluntary extrabudgetary contributions and secondments by Governments.

In the present global environment, mobilizing extrabudgetary resources has become increasingly difficult. Secondments remain an important source of support, but it is quite difficult for countries in special situations to second staff.

If the President is expected, besides normal functions, to facilitate complex negotiations, convene high-level processes, advance the revitalization of the General Assembly and respond to emerging global challenges, his Office must have the institutional capacity to deliver.

I therefore strongly call upon the Fifth Committee to revisit the budget and support structure of the Office of the UNGA President, including its regular-budget staffing, non-post resources, institutional continuity and access to the expertise required to fulfil its growing responsibilities.

Currently, the President of the General Assembly does not have the authority to recruit regular budget staff for his Office. The One Executive Office of the Department of Operational Support administers the recruitment of OPGA personnel and determines eligibility and level.

A merit of this arrangement is that the candidates for regular budget posts of the Office of the President are evaluated independently by the Executive Office in the same manner as the rest of the UN Secretariat staff. I intend to continue this arrangement during my Presidency.

Finally, appropriate physical space of the Office of the President has been an issue for nearly three decades.

When I joined the Office of the President of the General Assembly in 1986, it was on the 38th floor, then it was thrown down to the 3rd floor. I am in discussions with the Secretary-General, I have had very fruitful discussions, and I thank him for initiating steps to restore the physical space of the Office.

Mr. Chair,

How this Committee decides matters as much as what it decides. Consensus remains one of its greatest strengths of this Committee. A budget agreed by all is a budget owned by all.

I urge delegations to complete the Committee’s work within the established timeframe, and you know what I mean. Many many years ago, I had to forego my Christmas Eve dinner to stay with the members. I hope this time will make a difference, and my Office and I stand ready to support you and your Bureau in this regard.

I mentioned in my opening remarks on 22 September that the world is not asking whether the United Nations exists. It is asking whether it works. Our response must be found not only in the mandates we adopt, but in the results we deliver.

Let us match mandates with resources, resources with accountability, and accountability with impact.

Let us undertake a foundational examination of our working methods so that the United Nations can keep pace with a rapidly changing world- harnessing new and innovative technologies, improve efficiency and quality of work, reduce cost and deliver better results for the people we serve. I emphasized that in my vision statement.

This is how we will manage transformation and restore trust. And this is how we will build a trusted United Nations that delivers for all.

Much is in your hands.

I thank you.