United Nations Fifth Committee Expert, Ms. Marivil V. Valles, facilitates negotiations on some of the Committee’s agenda items during the Fifth Committee session at the UN Headquarters.
UNITED NATIONS, NEW YORK, 31 December 2022 – At the United Nations Fifth Committee session, which was held from October 3 to December 30, 2022, the Philippines tabled proposals for the establishment of human resource posts, under Programme budget for 2023, in support of Middle-Income Countries (MICs) and the work of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs office (DESA) to strengthen the development pillar of the United Nations reform efforts.
In particular, these human resource posts were intended to support the work of ECOSOC Sub-programme 9 (financing for development) and Sub-programme 6 (financing economic analysis). The Philippine proposal also included resources aimed at strengthening DESA’s monitoring and evaluation division to bolster the office’s internal controls, implementation, monitoring, evaluation and reporting mechanisms.
Fifth Committee Expert Marivil V. Valles explained during the informal consultations that “the UN system should continue to improve on the support structure it offers to developing countries, including Middle-Income Countries such as the Philippines, and explore all avenues, which have the potential to benefit these countries.”
The Philippines proposed the establishment of human resource posts to bolster the Department’s monitoring and evaluation function in support of the needs of developing countries.
The proposal, however, did not enjoy consensus after several rounds of negotiations in the Committee.
Under the Programme budget for 2023, the Philippines also tabled two policy paragraphs, which requested the Secretary General to, first, fill all the vacant posts in DESA arising from early or mandatory retirement as expeditiously as possible and to have better succession planning needs to prepare for those anticipating the mandatory age of retirement. The second was intended to support implicitly the Department in its efforts to facilitate the efficient delivery of its work and programmes, which are geared toward strengthening the developing countries. While the first did not, again, reach consensus in the Committee, the delegations agreed on the second proposal.
During the Fifth Committee session, on behalf of the Group of 77 and China, the Philippines also led negotiations for the resolution on the UN Joint Staff Pension Fund, which took on board proposals to allocate pension fund investments in emerging and developing country markets. The resolution was able to include Asia as one of the markets to focus on when exploring impact investing solutions with a view to generating positive social and environmental impact, and bearing in mind the annual real rate of return target by the pension fund of 3.5%. The Philippines also successfully negotiated the submission of a report by the Secretary General at the 78th session of the Committee on the progress of diversification of the Fund’s investments among developed, developing and emerging markets, including information on investments by country and geographical region and by currencies and asset class.
In the last few weeks leading to the closing session of the Fifth Committee, the Philippines successfully facilitated, after holding eight (8) informal consultations, the items on Subventions to international courts, as follows: a. Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL), on which the Committee authorized the UN Secretary General (SG) to appropriate USD 2.96M to support the work of the Tribunal under Programme budget for 2023; b. Residual Special Court of Sierra Leone (RSCSL), through which the Committee approved the request of the SG to enter into commitment authority and disburse the amount of USD 2.76M to continue the work of the Special Court in 2023; and c. the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC), similarly, to disburse USD 3.81M to continue financing the work of the ECCC in 2023. END.