STATEMENT DELIVERED BY ITALY AT THE “SEVENTH SESSION OF THE ZERO DRAFT OF THE OUTCOME DOCUMENT FOR THE UN SUMMIT TO ADOPT THE POST-2015 DEVELOPMENT AGENDA” (21 July 2015)

We thank you co-facilitators for your hard work and tireless commitment to this group. We are entering the final stretch of our long journey. Ambassador Kamau has reminded us, almost a year ago, during the long and concluding hours of the Open Working Group exercise, that “we have been running a marathon” and that the last miles are the toughest and longest. We see this coming again and please rest assure that we will do our best to ensure that our final output meets the global community expectations and captures the challenges linked to the transformational and universal nature of the new Agenda.

Co-facilitators,

The second version of the zero draft is a significant step in this direction and we wish to add some comments in our national capacity, while aligning ourselves with the statement made by the European Union on behalf of its Member States.

We welcome the preamble and the use of the five Ps as a valuable tool. We strongly urge to make sure that the integration among Ps is ensured. We suggest, to this end, to include the words in “an integrated manner” in the last sentence of the preamble, which would read, and I quote, “if we realize our ambitions in these areas and across the full extent of the new Agenda in an integrated manner, the lives of millions of human beings will be profoundly altered and our world will be transformed for the better.”

On gender we associate ourselves with the statement made by Costa Rica on behalf of 30 countries.

In the Declaration, we support the suggestion made by the distinguished Ambassador of Benin on behalf of LDCs to change the verb in the second sentence from “intend” to “will” as it better reflects our ambitions and aspirations in terms of ending poverty and hunger everywhere. In paragraph 9 we suggest including the words “and seas” following the reference to air, land and oceans, as seas and their resources are key for the survival of millions of people.

In paragraph 16 we suggest the inclusion of “promoting sustainable consumption and production” as one of the key overarching objectives of sustainable development.

We strongly support paragraph 17.

In the last sentence of paragraph 25 we suggest including a reference to policies that also “promote sustainability” to be coherent with the second sentence in the paragraph on building dynamic, sustainable and people-centred economies.

We strongly support paragraph 26 on sustainable consumption and production and the 10-year framework of programmes as well as the reference to shared responsibility in paragraph 31.

On the section on implementation, we suggest changing the order of paragraphs, in particular paragraph 33 on the Addis Outcome and paragraph 40 on the global partnership which, in our view, should be moved to the beginning of this section.

In paragraph 35 we believe that the role of science policy interface is key not only in environmental governance, and its scope should be broadened to sustainable development governance as suggested also by Belize on behalf of CARICOM.

On follow up and review, we associate ourselves to the call by many to strengthen this section.

We also would like to see reflected in the text a reference to the crucial role of the UN and to the need for the UN system to be  “fit for purpose.”

Finally, co-facilitators, we are adopting a universal agenda for sustainable development and we see this should be reflected in the title of the document we will be adopting in September.

Finally, we would wish to add our voice to the many we have heard yesterday and today on singling out only CBDR among the Rio Principles. We believe that the Principles set out in the Rio Declaration are all of equal and utmost importance in tackling environmental issues. Principle 7, in particular, was designed in the context of global environmental degradation and cannot be considered as an overarching principle of the post 2015 agenda.

In conclusion co-facilitators, as I said in the opening of our statement, we appreciate your leadership and commitment to this process. We are ready to run this final stretch together and we will continue to do our best to be as constructive and supportive as possible.

Thank you.