13 December 2016: The Second Committee (Economic and Financial) of the UN General Assembly (UNGA) adopted 7 resolutions on 13 December. All but one were adopted by consensus; a recorded vote was required for a proposed amendment to the resolution on the Quadrennial Comprehensive Policy Review (QCPR), which is expected to guide the alignment of the UN Development System (UNDS) with the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

The amendment for the resolution on the QCPR was proposed by Israel, who requested the deletion of the words “countries and people under foreign occupation” from a section that calls on the UN development system to continue supporting developing States in their efforts to achieve international agreed development goals and objectives, requesting the system to address the special challenges facing, among others, countries in conflict and post-conflict situations and countries and peoples under foreign occupation. The Committee voted against the proposed amendment by a recorded vote of 5 in favor (Australia, Canada, Israel, United States, Palau) to 115 against with 45 abstentions. The QCPR resolution was approved as a whole without a vote.

The Second Committee also approved 7 other draft resolutions on sustainable development by consensus. These resolutions address: follow-up to and implementation of the outcomes of the International Conferences on Financing for Development; implementation of the outcome of the UN Conference on Housing and Sustainable Urban Development (Habitat III) and strengthening of the UN Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat); external debt sustainability and development; the second UN Decade for the Eradication of Poverty (2008-2017); and agriculture development, food security and nutrition.

On the draft resolution titled, ‘Follow-up to and implementation of the outcomes of the International Conferences on Financing for Development,’ the EU, also for Australia, Canada, Israel, Japan, Republic of Korea, Liechtenstein, New Zealand, Switzerland and the US, said there would be no need for an additional report on financing for development (FfD) in the Second Committee, given the report of the Inter-Agency Task Force on FfD. She said the Secretariat provided unsolicited advice to some Member States during the silence procedure with the intention of influencing a decision, which constituted an interference in the Member State process, expressed “deep concern” about this, and stressed that the respective attitude almost saw the loss of consensus on the resolution.

The representative of South Africa, associating himself with the Group of 77 and China (G-77/ China) and the African Group, said the negotiations had not indicated “any propensity” to implement the Addis Ababa Action Agenda (AAAA), particularly from development partners.

The draft resolution titled, ‘Implementation of the outcome of the UN Conference on Housing and Sustainable Urban Development (Habitat III) and strengthening of the UN Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat),’ encourages Member States, international and bilateral donors and financial institutions to contribute to UN-Habitat through increased voluntary financial contributions to the UN Habitat and Human Settlements Foundation, including the Urban Basic Services Trust Fund and the technical cooperation trust funds. It also invites governments in a position to do so and other stakeholders to provide predictable multi-year funding and increased non-earmarked contributions to support the implementation of its mandate.

The draft resolution titled, ‘External debt sustainability and development,’ invites donor countries, taking into account country-specific debt sustainability analyses, to continue their provision of concessional and grant-based financing to developing countries, which could contribute to debt sustainability in the medium to long term. The draft also invites the international community to continue efforts to increase support, including financial and technical assistance, for institutional capacity-building in developing countries to enhance sustainable upstream and downstream debt management as an integral part of national development strategies.

The draft resolution titled, ‘Second UN Decade for the Eradication of Poverty (2008-2017),’ reaffirms that the objective of the Second UN Decade for the Eradication of Poverty (2008-2017) is to support, in an efficient and coordinated manner, the follow-up to the implementation of the internationally agreed development goals, including the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), as established by the 2030 Agenda, which builds on the unfinished business of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) relating to the eradication of poverty in all its forms and dimensions, including extreme poverty, and to coordinate international support to that end. The resolution also calls on the international community, including Member States, to continue to accord “the highest priority” to poverty eradication within the UN development agenda.

The draft resolution titled, ‘Agriculture development, food security and nutrition,’ stresses the need to increase sustainable agricultural production and productivity globally, recognizes the need to increase the resilience of food and agricultural production to climate change, encourages and recognizes the efforts at all levels to establish and strengthen social protection measures and programmes, including national safety nets and protection programmes for the needy and vulnerable, and calls for closing the gender gap in access to productive resources in agriculture.

The Committee also approved the draft programme of work of the Second Committee for the seventy-second session of the General Assembly. [UN Press Release][Status of UNGA Draft Proposals][SDG Knowledge Hub Story on Resolutions Adopted by Second Committee]