Mr. Chairman,

I have the honour to speak on behalf of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC). We thank the Secretary General for the presentation of the report related to the item 22 b.

CELAC Member States have been following with interest the informal consultations on the outcome document of the Second United Nations Conference on Landlocked Developing Countires, to take place in Vienna in November 3-5, 2014 and in that regard, we would like to thank the Government of Austria for hosting such important meeting.

We believe in the need to work towards the adoption of a new and ambitious Programme of Action for Landlocked Developing Countries that contains a holistic approach, oriented to address the special development challenges of these countries, related mainly to their geographical situation, and built on the good experiences learned from the implementation of the Almaty Programme of Action. In that regard, we stress the importance of promoting new and innovative partnerships with the UN Development System and relevant UN agencies, the private sector, and the civil society that include responsible accountability mechanisms of UN Partnerships to Member States.

It will be crucial to establish a time-bound Programme that clearly differentiates between the responsibilities of development partners and transit developing countries, and addresses issues of interest of landlocked developing countries such as: (1) broader and effective access and free movement of Landlocked Developing Countries from and towards the coastline, (2) development and maintenance of needed infrastructure to improve transit, trade, regional integration and the development of resilience in these countries, (3) improvement of trade facilitations, (4) economic and structural transformation of their economies and, (5) capacity building for adaptation, mitigation and resilience in order to address the effects of climate change. All these components will be critical to deal with the economic, social and environmental challenges facing by LLDCs.

We therefore make a call to the international community in order to support Landlocked developing countries in designing and implementing effective policies to promote the diversification and structural transformation of their economies and exports, increase agricultural productivity and the services sector, strengthen the role of the private sector and promote science, technology and innovation. The international community should provide an enhanced level of financial and technical support to Landlocked Developing Countries, including through the mobilization of ODA, which must remain as a central component of aid to LLDCs; and through South-South cooperation, in a voluntary and complimentary nature to North-South cooperation, in accordance with the Nairobi outcome document of the United Nations Conference on South-South cooperation.

All these issues need to be highlighted during the Conference and therefore, CELAC countries express their commitment to continue engaging in the negotiation process of the outcome document and seeks for the support of the international community in this endeavor.

We further believe in the need to take into account the results of the Conference in the definition of the Post-2015 Development Agenda, along with a holistic, inclusive and transparent financing strategy that considers the particular needs and aspirations of all LLDCs.

Thank you