Statement by Mr. Nguyen Tat Thanh, Deputy Permanent Representative,

on agenda item 64(a): New Partnership for Africa's Development: Progress in implementation and international support 

 

New York, 18 October 2007
 

 

Mr. President,

First of all, I wish to thank the Secretary-General for his New Partnership for Africa’s Development: fifth consolidated report on progress in implementation and international support (A/62/203), which highlights progress made so far towards the realisation of Africa’s aspirations for eradicating hunger and poverty and attaining sustainable development and durable peace, and focuses on the special needs of Africa for the implementation of the Internationally Agreed Development Goals, including the MDGs.

My Delegation associates itself with the statements made respectively by the distinguished representatives of Pakistan on behalf of the Group of 77 and China, and Indonesia on behalf of ASEAN.

Mr. President,

This year marks the mid-point to the target date for attaining the Millennium Development Goals. We are delighted to witness some encouraging progress made by African States in their struggle for lasting peace, poverty eradication, HIV/AIDS prevention and sustainable development.  More African countries are participating in the African Peer Review Mechanism, which enables them to improve their political, economic and social performance. Despite these positive developments, however, there remain enormous challenges facing African States in their endeavors to achieve the MDGs. The continent continues to lag behind the rest of the developing world and is still far from achieving the target of 6% growth in Gross National Product per annum established by the United Nations New Agenda for Development of Africa in the 1990s. Moreover, Africa is known to have the lowest share of global FDI flows, shoulder growing debt burden, suffer from an unfair and inequitable global trade regime, and seriously lack adequate resources for development

In response to these daunting magnitude of challenges, Viet Nam holds that the international community should strengthen global partnership to provide African States with support and assistance in their efforts to reach the Millennium Development Goals, including through more and better aid for trade, further debt relief and cancellation and improved market access for African products. In this regard, Viet Nam fully supports the Secretary-General’s decision to establish the Millennium Development Goal Africa Steering Group, which calls for international support for Africa’s implementation of the Goals, and notes with pleasure that the Multilateral Debt Relief Initiative and the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries Initiative have been complemented by bilateral debt relief efforts of the Group of Eight and other donor countries.

It is also worth re-stating that aid for trade performs a vital role in bringing additional resources to scale up investments necessary for African states to achieve the MDGs. Viet Nam is of the view that, by enabling better use of trading opportunities and facilitating trade flows, the Aid for Trade initiative has great potential for accelerating growth in Africa, which is not yet taking full advantage of unilateral and negotiated trade liberalization. However, we should not consider Aid for Trade to be an isolated response to the trading challenges facing African countries, but rather to be part of the ongoing effort to build a global partnership for development, in which South-South and North-South cooperation are of paramount importance. In this connection, Viet Nam welcomes the ongoing initiatives and partnerships being undertaken by the Special Unit for South-South cooperation at the subregional, regional, inter-regional and global levels towards establishing public–private partnership mechanisms aiming to enhance and expand South-South cooperation, including triangular cooperation in trade and investment.

Mr. President,

Over the past years, the scope of cooperation between Viet Nam and African brothers and sisters has been expanded bilaterally or in the South-South Cooperation Framework in areas ranging from agriculture, industry, science and technology to health care, education and environmental protection. Viet Nam has signed numerous cooperation agreements and projects with African States, such as the Agriculture Cooperation Project with Mozambique under the sponsorship of the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), the Tripartite Cooperation Project between Viet Nam, France and Mali, and the Project on Lessons Learned from Economic Development and Poverty Eradication in Viet Nam with the participation of Viet Nam, Benin and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).  Trade relations are driven by a dynamism of mutual interest. Viet Nam’s two-way trade volume with Africa grew many folds between 1991 and 2006, from just US $15 million to approximately US$1 billion.

Let me conclude by reaffirming that strengthening all-sided relations with Africa continues to be a corner-stone of Viet Nam’s foreign policy and, we shall continue to explore ways and means to further contribute to the successful implementation of NEPAD.

I thank you, Mr. President.