‘DELIVERING ON AND IMPLEMENTING A TRANSFORMATIVE POST-2015 DEVELOPMENT AGENDA’

New York, 24 September, 2014

Mr. President,
Mr. Secretary-General,
Excellencies,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

At the outset may I join others in extending our heartfelt congratulations to you, Minister S. Kutesa, on your unanimous election as President of the current session of the General Assembly.

You can count on my delegation’s full support in the discharge of your onerous responsibilities in steering our work in the months ahead.

Mr. President,

The world is faced with multiple crises – violent conflicts in various parts of the world, terrorist activities by extremist groups, unprecedented epidemics and natural calamities.

At this time of turmoil we, as a family of nations, must rally around the World Organization, as a centre of multilateralism, upholding its Charter and universal principles of international law.

We need peace and development.

We need to do our utmost to implement the right of peoples to peace as emphasized by the Declaration on the Right of Peoples to Peace adopted 30 years ago at the initiative of Mongolia.

We have consistently supported joint efforts of the international community against terrorism in all its forms and manifestations.

Mongolia is a party to the majority of international counter-terrorism instruments.

Unthinkable atrocities, committed by the terrorist group named the ISIL (Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant), pose alarming threats to the regional peace and security.

The international community ought to take resolute action and resolve this issue comprehensively in compliance with the UN Charter.

Mongolia commends the Secretary-General’s leadership in rallying international support and establishing the UNMEER (UN Mission for Ebola Emergency Response) to ensure a rapid, effective and coherent response to the Ebola crisis.

We support the resolutions of the Security Council and the General Assembly to this effect.

The situation in Ukraine should be resolved only through political dialogue refraining from the use of force.

Current ceasefire needs to be made more sustainable taking into account all efforts towards finding a solution, including the “Putin Plan” outlined in Ulaanbaatar earlier this month, as well as the Minsk Protocol and its Follow-up Memorandum.

Mr. President,

Democracy

25 years ago Mongolia chose its development path – to embrace rule of law, democratic governance, market economy and open society.

Among the countries known as the third wave of democratization, the transition to democracy was in many respects unique in Mongolia.

We made a simultaneous transition to democracy and market economy. We made that transition peacefully.

The 1990 democratic parliamentary elections were not only first of its kind in the region, but it was fully free and fair.

To ensure an inclusive growth and citizen’s participation a national policy on decentralization through direct democracy has been introduced.

As a result, citizens have been enabled to directly participate in identifying development priorities and allocation and monitoring of the local budget.

To identify a long-term development pathway and regain confidence of investors a number of multi-stakeholders’ events were introduced – the Mongolia Economic Forum, Business Summit and Discover Mongolia.

In addition, new laws, particularly on investment, on investment’s fund and petroleum, budget transparency and others were adopted.
At the international level, Mongolia served as Chair of the 5th International Conference of New and Restored Democracies and the Community of Democracies.

We currently chair the Freedom Online Coalition. It is for the first time that an Asian country leads the Coalition. We support the Human Rights Council’s decision that Internet freedom is a basic human right.

Mongolia as a staunch advocate of democracy and freedom will use the opportunity of chairing the Coalition to promote both nationally and internationally the Internet that is free and secure for all.

To support emerging democracies Mongolia has set up an International Cooperation Fund.

We have nothing to preach, but we have experience and lessons learned. Hence, we shared with Kyrgyzstan our experience in parliamentary democracy and legal reform, organized training for Afghan diplomats and Myanmar journalists.

Mr. President,

Climate change

Mongolia highly commends Secretary-General’s leadership to galvanize and catalyze the global action on climate change.

Climate change is not a challenge for the future; it is a matter of urgent priority today.

Yesterday’s Summit offered world leaders a unique opportunity to voice their commitments to cut the emission gap, pledge for the 2 degrees scenario in the lead up to COP21 in Paris next year.

But this pledge will remain a mere ambition if not backed up by bold action and strong political will.

We are running out of time. But we cannot run out of our Planet Earth.

The time to act is now.

Moreover, the Green Climate Fund needs to be made fully operational. If resources are actually transferred as incentive to countries which reduce their GHG emission, it will have a multiplier effect.

No one country is immune to climate change.

Even my own country – Mongolia, which has centuries-old tradition to live in harmony with nature – is experiencing its disproportionate effect.

Conscious of this reality Mongolia has recently adopted a Green Development Policy.

We expressed our support to the Statement on Carbon Pricing, and to the New York Declaration on Forest to combat deforestation.

Mr. President,

SDGs

This session of the General Assembly has an important task to articulate the post-2015 development agenda based on the legacy of the MDGs (Millennium Development Goals).

In this regard we look forward to a synthesis report by the Secretary-General prior to the intergovernmental negotiations on SDGs (Sustainable Development Goals) during this General Assembly session.

We also welcome the Outcome of the Open Working Group on SDGs and commend its hard work over the last 18 months.

Rio+20 underscored the special challenges facing the most vulnerable countries, including landlocked developing countries.
Yet, we are of the view that the Outcome Document of the Open Working Group could have better reflected the special needs of LLDCs (Landlocked developing countries).
We look forward to the upcoming intergovernmental negotiations to redress that situation.
In the run-up to the ten-year review of the Almaty Program of Action we hosted a high level international workshop on “WTO Agreement on Trade Facilitation: Implications for LLDCs” last June.
We also joined the “Intergovernmental Agreement on Dry Port” to engage ourselves in regional connectivity.
Mr. President,
Mongolia, China, Russia Summit
Facilitation of transit transportation, infrastructure development and reduction of trade barriers were among the issues discussed during the recent visits to Mongolia by President Xi Jinping and President V.Putin.
We agreed to expand our cooperation in those areas.
Those agreements were once again reiterated at the first ever trilateral summit between Mongolia, China and Russia on the sidelines of the SCO Summit in Dushanbe earlier this month.
The expansion of our cooperation with two neighbors augurs well for regional trade and investment and paves the way for enhanced economic collaboration with our 3rd neighbors.
Mongolia is redoubling its efforts to join APEC, become a dialogue partner of ASEAN and to constructively engage in the East Asia Summit.
Last July we also signed an economic partnership agreement with Japan.
Mr. President,

Northeast Asia

Strengthening peace and stability in Northeast Asia is one of our national security priorities.

We firmly believe that dialogue and open discussions enhance confidence among nations.

Following up on the “Ulaanbaatar Dialogue” initiative, we have successfully hosted a series of fruitful platforms – Women parliamentarians meeting, International research conference and City mayors meeting of Northeast Asian countries.

The stability on the Korean Peninsula is crucial for maintaining regional peace and security.

We stand for an early resumption of the Six-PartyTalks.

As a country with a declared nuclear-weapon-free status Mongolia firmly believes that the Korean Peninsula must be nuclear-weapons-free.

Mr. President,

SC reform

In a time of major geopolitical change, the UN system must reflect new economic and political realities.

We need to accelerate the reform process, including the long-overdue expansion of Security Council membership in both permanent and non-permanent categories.

The issue of the Council’s working method is also important for all small States, which make up a majority in the United Nations.

Out of 193 members of the United Nations 70 States have never been elected as members of the Security Council, including my own country – Mongolia.

As a responsible member of the international community Mongolia has put forward its candidature for a non-permanent seat of the Security Council at the elections to be held in 2022 and is seeking the valuable support of its fellow members.

Mr. President,

In conclusion, may I express my confidence that this session of the General Assembly will be able to deliver a common development strategy beyond 2015.

A strategy that will inspire and guide us to collectively work towards a safer, more equitable and prosperous future in the years to come.

Thank you for your kind attention.