Events

MINSK, 13 November (BelTA) – Belarus called for preserving the universality of the UN development system and its non-politicized character, Permanent Representative of the Republic of Belarus to the United Nations Valentin Rybakov said as he spoke at a briefing by the Secretary-General on the repositioning of the UN development system, BelTA learned from the press service of the Belarusian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

In his speech, Valentin Rybakov outlined the approaches of Belarus to the repositioning of the development system and expressed hope that this work would be aimed at addressing the problematic areas of the functioning of the system. “The Belarusian diplomat called for preserving the universality of the development system, its non-politicized character and determining role of governments in choosing methods and means to achieve sustainable development goals in their countries,” the press service stressed.

Valentin Rybakov noted that for Belarus the key question was how the development system would operate at the country level after repositioning, and outlined a number of issues that were most urgent for the country.

The permanent representative stressed that the reform of such an important segment of the UN’s work as development should not result in the malfunction in the work of country offices and should not create additional tasks and financial implications for recipient countries.

In conclusion, Valentin Rybakov noted that Belarus expected all the elements of the ongoing repositioning to be based on the principle of the correspondence of operational activities to national priorities of recipient countries.