EU Presidency Statement - The Support Account

Mr. Chairman,

I have the honour to speak on behalf of the European Union. The countries of Central and Eastern Europe associated with the European Union, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, the associated countries, Cyprus y Malta align themselves with this statement.

Mr. Chairman,

The EU commends the Secretariat on the efforts made concerning the use of the results-based budgeting format. As stated in the report of the ACABQ, there is still work to be done but at this stage we would like to recognize the huge step already taken.

As a result of the process initiated by the Brahimi-Panel, more than 200 new support account posts have been approved. During the last session of the Special Committee on Peacekeeping, Under-Secretary-General Guehenno stated: "It is now time for us to deliver". We cannot but concur with the Under-Secretary-General. Within a number of areas we have seen significant improvements of the Secretariat's performance but during our current deliberations with the budgets for the peacekeeping missions we are also constantly reminded that there is still some way to go.

Mr. Chairman,

In general, the EU supports most of the observations and recommendations of the ACABQ contained in its report A/56/941. We would, however, like to comment on a few of the posts.

We strongly support the establishment of a position of Director of Change Management which will lead the much needed overhauling and strengthening of the entire department's management system and practices.

Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration (DDR) increasingly plays an integral and critical part in the success of peacekeeping operations. DPKO must have the capacity to fully backstop and coordinate DDR efforts in the field, and we therefore fully support the establishment of a P-4 post for that purpose.

The EU fully supports the gender mainstreaming in peacekeeping. As the office of the Special Adviser on Gender Issues and Advancement of Women is not in a position to further undertake responsibility for gender mainstreaming in peacekeeping operations, it is apparent that specialized gender expertise is needed within the DPKO to mainstream gender perspectives in all its activities. We commend steps already taken and we continue to encourage proper backstopping in the Secretariat. While doing so, we are once again disappointed that the Secretariat was not able to properly describe the role and activities of the proposed P-5 Senior Gender Adviser.

The EU fully recognizes that the Secretariat should have the adequate capacity to prepare and deliver guidance and support for public information in PKO. We are aware that the Department of Public Information, in consultation with the Department of Peacekeeping Operations and other parts of the Secretariat, is developing standard operating procedures for public information components in peacekeeping missions and other types of missions. To enable DPI to implement an important recommendation of the Brahimi report, it is hoped that the Fifth Committee would look positively at the additional resources required by DPI.

Mr. Chairman,

The number of posts within the budget "support account" should be directly correlated to the existing number of peacekeeping operations, hence there should be a proportional relationship between the two. Therefore, for the near future, we should ensure to avoid financing permanent post within the budget support account.

Let me conclude by regretting the very late submission of the report of the ACABQ. The budget for the Support Account was submitted by the Secretary-General on 22 March. In view of the importance this committee usually attaches to the Support Account, we would have liked to see it at an earlier stage.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

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• EU Presidency Statement - Peacekeeping Financing  (15/5/2002)
• EU Presidency Statement - Special Committee on Peacekeeping Operations (11/2/2002)