Mr. President, Mr. Deputy Secretary General, Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen,
We align ourselves with the statement delivered on behalf of the EU and its Member States.
We thank you, Mr. President, for having scheduled the discussion on a renewed Global Partnership and on means of implementation right at the beginning of the high-level thematic debates which will help pave the way towards this year’s crucial development appointments.
A New Deal for a strengthened Global Partnership represents in our view more than one among other goals of the report of the Open Working Group. It represents indeed the arch stone upon which effective means of Implementation of the post-2015 architecture will ultimately rest. As the Secretary General said in his Report The Road to Dignity by 2030, “Implementation is not just about quantity. It is also about doing things together, uniting around the problem”. We think that we need to share not only responsibilities and challenges, we need to share first and foremost capabilities, resources, technologies and know-how, cultures of doing resulting from individual experiences. This is the concept that inspires the organization of the 2015 Universal Exhibition, that will take place starting next May in Milan, around the theme “Feeding the Planet, Energy for Life”.
Mr. President, the interconnected nature of the objectives of the future sustainable development agenda requires an implementing approach allowing all participating actors and stakeholders to contribute harmoniously and consistently. The new Global Partnership should enable us to achieve precisely that. That is to say, to maximize synergies in mobilizing resources and capabilities with a view to making the most out of the contribution that each actor can provide based upon the principles of universality, shared responsibility and mutual accountability of the new Agenda. Italy, with an open and constructive spirit, is very much looking forward to deepening the reflection on technology development and transfer as well as capacity building for implementation of the post-2015 development agenda.
We also welcome, Mr. President, the inclusion in the program of a special panel on the role of Parliaments, Cities and Local authorities in the implementation of the post-2015 development agenda. Key to the success of the sustainable development agenda will indeed be its ability to reach out to citizens, to listen to them and to respond effectively to their calls. The participation of Parliaments, Cities and local authorities will enhance the legitimacy of the SDGs. It will thus have a definite positive effect both on policy coherence at all levels and on citizens’ awareness raising of the relevance of SDGs to their lives.
Italy believes that the provision of reliable data and statistics will be an essential tool for the new Global Partnership as it will enable multiple actors and stakeholders to make better informed decisions. Reliable data will facilitate synergies and ultimately enhance transparency, accountability and credibility of the new agenda which will all be key to its success. An appropriate set of indicators should also help monitor the progress of our shared agenda. Actions should therefore be promoted to strengthen national capacities for data collection and analysis. In this perspective we welcome the valuable work conducted by the Independent Expert Advisory Group on the Data Revolution for Sustainable Development created last year on the initiative of the Secretary-General.
While the new Global Partnership should represent the “multiplier” of our shared efforts, we also need to leverage on a vast array of means of implementation to ensure success to the post-2015 agenda. Such means of implementation will have to be both domestic and international, financial and non-financial, public and private, traditional and innovative. They will have to be targeted to the three dimensions of sustainable development, take into account the conditions of the neediest among countries such as the LDCs and the SIDS and “leave no one behind”. Since the post-2015 will be universal, the principle of “shared responsibility” will maintain its critical relevance.
Mr. President, Italy has a longstanding and successful tradition in partnering for development and in managing a vast array of means of implementation ranging from innovative sources of financing to global initiatives for reducing the cost of remittances, from addressing the joint challenges of development and security to utilizing public resources to help market mechanisms integrate the social returns of investments. We are in the process of reforming our national development cooperation architecture to be able to deliver more effectively on our common endeavor and are willing to share our competences to contribute to a successful design and implementation of a universal and transformative post-2015 agenda.
Thank you.
