Chair,
It is my honor to introduce this resolution on behalf of the Nordic countries, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Sweden and my own country Norway.
The omnibus resolution on the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees is an annual resolution, supporting the humanitarian and non-political mandate of UNHCR.
This year it has been Norway’s privilege to facilitate the informal consultations on behalf of the Nordic countries.
This year’s draft resolution calls for the need for strengthened burden- and responsibility sharing with the host countries, the importance of flexible and unearmarked funding and calls for implementation of the pledges made at the two Global Refugee Forums.
The text furthermore stresses the need to improve the resilience of forcibly displaced persons and their host communities in the context of adverse effects of climate change and disasters. And it strongly condemns attacks and all forms of violence, against humanitarian personnel and UN and associated personnel.
As per established practice, the draft resolution is the outcome of extensive informal consultations in Geneva. We sincerely thank the Member States for their constructive cooperation in pursuing a text that could enjoy consensus.
Despite our best joint efforts, silence was broken. Given the strong and cross-regional support for the text, and in line with our approach as facilitator, we have not re-opened negotiations here in New York. We are grateful for the broad support for this approach.
We recognize that an amendment proposal has been tabled. By quoting the Statute of the UNHCR, we read the amendment as reaffirming the non-political nature of the Office of the UNHCR. In our outreach to Member States, we have heard a clear convergence towards adopting both the amendment and the resolution without a vote – and we kindly ask all Member States to support this approach today.
With record numbers of persons being forcibly displaced, we believe it is more important than ever that the international community stands united in showing solidarity with the many displaced and the communities and countries generously hosting them.
In these times, when the humanitarian system is being undermined in several situations, it is also critical that we show strong support to the humanitarian and non-political actors such as the UNHCR.
We thus encourage all of you to co-sponsor the resolution.
We also want to inform colleagues that we have to make an oral technical revision in OP 10.
It should read: ‘…to continue contributing to the United Nations system’s collective efforts…’. This should replace ‘…to contribute to the collective efforts of the United Nations system …’
I thank you.