The Second Session of the PrepCom that will take place in New York from April 4-8 will set the agenda for the Fourth United Nations Conference on the Least Developed Countries scheduled to be held in Istanbul Turkey from May 9-13.[break]
According to a press statement issued by Permanent Mission of Nepal to the United Nations on Saturday, the PrepCom meeting had four formal sessions and five informal sessions. Sixty statements were made during the General Debate of the meeting, of them 48 were from member states and the rest from the various UN agencies.
Addressing the function, Permanent Representative of Nepal to the UN Gyan Chandra Acharya in his capacity as the Chair of the Global Coordination Bureau of LDCs highlighted the priorities and needs of LDCs in the Istanbul Program of Action for the decade 2011-2020 as prepared by LDCs.
Acharya underlined the imperative for having a comprehensive, ambitious, forward-looking and result-oriented Program of Action for LDCs for the next decade. He called for robust, predictable and enhanced international support architecture for LDCs for the effective implementation of the Program of Action with the aim of enabling at least half of the member LDCs to reach the stage of graduation during the next decade.
According to the press statement, the PrepCom endorsed the outcome document along with the views expressed and submissions made by the development partners during the PrepCom meeting as the primary document for negotiation. The five informal sessions were devoted to the discussions of seven thematic clusters which were basically drawn from the LDCs´ primary document.
The priorities outlined in the LDCs documents include productive capacity across the board, infrastructure and energy, science and technology and ICT, commodities and trade, human and social development, gender equality and empowerment of women. Food security, environmental degradation and climate change, financial resources for development and capacity building are also among the priorities identified for the LDCs.
Ambassador Acharya led the Nepalese delegation as well as LDC Group during the discussion. Other members in the Nepali delegation included Deputy Permanent Representative of Nepal to the UN Shanker Bairagi, Joint Secretary at National Planning Commission Secretariat Pushpa Lal Shakya, Deputy Permanent Representative (Commerce) of Nepal to the UN in Geneva Ravi Bhattarai, Counselor at Permanent Mission of Nepal to the UN Mani Prasad Bhattarai, Under Secretary at Ministry of Foreign Affairs Sudhir Bhattarai and First Secretary at Permanent Mission of Nepal to the UN Mani Ratna Sharma.
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