UN RC Remarks at UNDESA Workshop

Let me start by saying Namaste and Good morning to all of you. It's a real pleasure to be here and to join you for this important workshop on the Integrated National Financing Framework and training around it. On behalf of the United Nations, I extend our gratitude to the Government of Fiji for hosting this event here today, and for their continued leadership and sustainable development efforts. And of course, our gratitude also goes to my colleagues from UNDESA, who are here today to help organize this training workshop.

I'm extremely pleased also to see that this workshop takes place right after the historic Summit of the Future, some of you may have read about it in the news. It was a very big summit organized in the lead up to the UN General Assembly in New York, and all world leaders came together and actually agreed on the Pact for the Future. The Pact for the Future is a very comprehensive framework that reaffirms all of our commitment to sustainable development, and it puts a special emphasis on the efforts needed now to accelerate progress and to bridge the gap towards reaching the Sustainable Development Goals, bridging the finance gap and to reform the international financial architecture.

Some of you may know that the international financial architecture works in a very peculiar way,I must say. So, many of the multilateral development banks still use GDP as a measure to decide to which extent you know, a country is eligible to concessional loans. 

And we have learned over the years that the GDP as a measure, is a very imperfect measure, because especially here, also in the Pacific, we have middle income countries, even some high-income countries that don't necessarily qualify anymore for concessional loans. But at the same time, those countries are highly vulnerable, and they may not be in the same situation than other middle-income countries or high-income countries. So, there's a very urgent need that was pronounced during the Summit of the Future to actually reform the international financial architecture, and shortly before, in the lead-up to the Summit of the Future, the General Assembly also adopted what's called the Multi-dimensional Vulnerability Index. It's a new index, that's actually designed to take the vulnerabilities of countries into account, and then, based on that, vulnerabilities, not just GDP, decide to which extent countries can be eligible for conceptional development finance 

The Secretary General during this Summit also highlighted that Financing for Development is really critical to address the challenges faced by developing countries, no doubt about it, and it's absolutely key to achieving the 2030 Agenda. You also know that progress towards the achieving the Sustainable Development Goals globally is very low, and in particular the Pacific. Of the current trajectory, the Pacific will only reach 20% of the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030 and continuing on the same trajectory it would take until 2030 until 2060 approximately until the Pacific and also Fiji would achieve all the sustainable development goals. And I'm sure that you will all agree with me that we cannot wait for another 35 years for sustainable development to become reality in Fiji and then the rest of the Pacific, we have to accelerate our progress. At the same time, there's, of course, always a huge debate on who should pay for it, and yes, we need to mobilize domestic finance. We need to mobilize private sector finance, but we also need to mobilize development finance at a scale that by far exceeds what currently SIDS and other developing countries are receiving. 

And I'd like to throw in another number here, because one of the biggest financing needs we have here in the Pacific is climate change adaptation. There's no other place in the world that is as much and as disproportionately affected by climate change than the Pacific. Actually, sea-level rise is double the rate here in the Pacific compared to other countries in the world. 

So, twice the sea-level rise, and there is a chance that by end of the decade, if the polar caps will start melting, the sea level will rise by one meter. That will mean everything you see here right now will be submerged and will not exist anymore.

At the same time, Fiji, for example, has only contributed 0.02% to global greenhouse gas emissions. So, your contribution to global warming and sea level rise is basically nil. At the same time, you are bearing the brunt of it, and you're bearing also the most financing needs to actually adapt to climate change, so financing again, to put it in the words of the Secretary-General, and I’m sorry PS, usually I read my speeches today, I go off the cuff, so I do it opposite than you are doing. 

But to bring it back to the words of the Secretary General, Financing for Development is not merely a necessity, but it's an imperative for our collective future. It's a call for action for all nations, particularly Small Island Developing States like Fiji, to ensure sustainable development financing.

During the PIF leaders meeting, which the Secretary-General also attended in Tonga a couple of weeks ago, he called for increased financial support offered to Pacific and other Small Islands Developing States, not only must it be greater, but it must also be much easier to access. 

And I've just spoken to some of those barriers – the multilateral development system, banking system, has actually pulled up, and we need to take down those barriers. 

Pacific countries, including Fiji, face significant difficulties in accessing finance from global institutions and the road blocks, when compounded by the debt burden you actually face, mean that some countries in the region spend a large portion of the GDP on reprieve debt rather than on development. And I think Fiji is again a big example for that - you probably know better than I but the debt to GDP ratio in Fiji is currently 80% and I commend, actually, the government for taking action and for submitting a new budget that was approved in Parliament to help reduce that debt to GDP ratio, I think, to 70%.

But there's much more needed and it will take your country, you know, probably a decade or more, to take those debt levels down to acceptable levels, but at the same time, you're now servicing that debt. But that's money you shouldn't spend on servicing debt. That's money you should invest back into the social services and into the development of your country. And I think it's a moral injustice that countries that are already bearing the main brunt of climate change on top, you know, they have to repay debt to the global financial system and cannot use that money for their own sustainable development. 

So, Pacific leaders in their PIF Communique in Tonga, have emphasized the need for a fit-for-purpose financing to support the implementation of the 2030 Agenda and the 2050 regional strategy.

We support this call for financial institutions to focus on Fiji and Pacific SIDS to support them to more effectively mobilize resources for sustainable development. 

So, now coming to the to the national level, and that's why I've also spoken so extensively about sort of the global and regional architecture, because the integrated national financing frameworks have emerged as one of the tools you can use to support the country in aligning your financing with your sustainable financing development priorities which are very well articulated in your new National Development Plan. 

So, it helps you to identify your financing needs, but at the same time, it also strengthens the governance and the monitoring systems to actually ensure that your resources are effectively directed towards achieving development goals, because, as you know, there's, of course, also a lot of leakage. 

Fiji has recently adopted its National Development Plan. We have all attended the launch event very recently, and it provides an excellent roadmap for sustainable and inclusive growth and development. And as we embark on the plan to support this important Development Plan, the INFF becomes even more critical. It will help integrate various financing sources as we heard from PS Gounder -  private sector finance, foreign direct investment, PPP, domestically mobilized finance, development finance, all of them need to be integrated to ensure that development is not only well funded, but also well costed, well received, and makes the country more resilient to shocks. 

The INFF serves as a key instrument for strengthening planning processes, ensuring that financing is transparent, sustainable and tailored to your specific needs. So, the bold aspirations outlined in Fiji's national development plans have to be translated into actionable strategies and again, the INFF will play a crucial role in driving that transformation and helping you to come up with these particular actions. And over the next couple of days, obviously, I encourage all of you to actively engage in the discussions, to participate. You are the core of people here that are being trained that will help build the capacity also elsewhere to create a more robust financing framework. 

In closing, I would like to reaffirm the United Nations steadfast commitment to working closely with the Government of Fiji and all our partners to ensure that Financing for Development becomes a catalyst for achieving national development and the broader SDGs and not just the debt burden. The United Nations, led by my colleagues in UNDESA, is fully committed to supporting Fiji in all its endeavours. The integrated national financing framework is a tool to empower you. It is a tool to empower Fiji to turn its bold development aspirations into reality.

Vinaka Vakalevu. Dhanjavaad. Thank You.