Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 12 October 2010
114 Deputy Eamon Gilmore asked the Minister for Foreign Affairs his views on the ongoing need for meaningful United Nations reform regarding, inter alia, areas pertaining to climate change and disarmament. [36088/10]
Amharc ar fhreagraAs I outlined in my address to the United Nations General Assembly on 27 September, Ireland believes strongly in the need for reform of the United Nations. Ireland has actively championed the reform agenda at the UN in recent years and will continue to do so. In terms of the UN's development architecture, Ireland is particularly supportive of the ‘Delivering as One' approach at country level and has provided over €6 million to date in support of UN System Wide Coherence and the Delivering as One programme. Under Ireland's co-chairmanship (with Tanzania) at the close of the 2007-2008 UN General Assembly, a consensus resolution was passed which gave broad support to the Delivering As One approach and helped to advance its agenda.
The ‘Delivering as One' approach is yielding significant positive results, including greater coherence in UN development activities and improved delivery of services at the country level. It has also directly contributed to the establishment of the new, consolidated UN agency promoting gender equality, UN Women, which I warmly welcome. Ireland is committed to supporting this important new body within the UN system, as it works to enhance the rights and well-being of women worldwide.
As regards the Security Council, Ireland is supportive of reform of the Council so that it better reflects twenty-first century realities and in order to improve its effectiveness and transparency. Ireland supports the constructive ongoing work of the intergovernmental deliberations currently taking place in the General Assembly on Security Council reform. I have called for these deliberations to be intensified with a view to identifying whether there is a model for Security Council reform which can command broad consensus.
The UN itself needs to exert stronger budgetary controls over all its operations and this is something which Ireland and our EU partners are actively promoting. There is a particular need to review the current methodology for apportioning UN expenses in order to make it more properly reflective of capacity to pay. This is an issue which Ireland and its EU partners have highlighted in recent years and which we will continue to follow closely. I look forward to positive results emerging from the review of the existing Scale methodology which the General Assembly has been mandated to carry out.
On disarmament, there is growing international concern that the global disarmament machinery is not working as it should, and this is a concern I fully share. Last month I participated in a High Level Meeting in New York, convened by the UN Secretary-General, to examine how the work of the Conference on Disarmament could be revitalised. The meeting also looked at the workings of other bodies with disarmament responsibilities, principally the UN Disarmament Commission, and the First Committee of the General Assembly. In March, I addressed the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva and expressed my deep disappointment that the Conference has not managed to engage in substantive work for almost 15 years. I made clear in New York that this state of affairs cannot be allowed continue. This view is widely shared by our EU partners and other Western States, but I have to say that it is not universally shared. Secretary General Ban is now to ask his Advisory Board on Disarmament Matters to undertake a thorough review of the issues raised at the High Level Meeting, with a view to considering what further actions may be necessary.
In terms of reform of UN structures pertaining to climate change, the Governing Council of the United Nations Environment Programme decided to establish, at its 11th Special Session in February 2010, a consultative group of ministers or high level representatives whose mandate is to consider the broader reform of the international environmental governance system. Ireland supports the ongoing reform process and I look forward to the group's final report to be presented to the Governing Council's 26th session in February 2011.
I also look forward to a successful outcome to the negotiations on climate change at the 16th Conference of the Parties later this year and to the discussion on the institutional framework for sustainable development, one of the main themes of the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development to be held in Rio de Janeiro in 2012.
