Remarks by
H.E. Mr. Saleumxay Kommasith,
Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Lao PDR
At the 2017 UNDP Asia and the Pacific Regional Management Meeting
“Achieving SDGs in a New Development Era”
7-10 March 2017, Bangkok
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Session I: Future trends in Asia and the Pacific and how UNDP can be a valued partner in this context. Perspectives from partners on UNDP’s role in the changing future of Asia Pacific.

Excellency Mr. George Milner Tozaka, Minister of Foreign Affairs and External Trade of,
Solomon Islands,
Madame Helen Clark, UNDP Administrator,
Mr. Haoliang Xu, Assistant Administrator and Director of the Regional Bureau of the
Asia-Pacific UNDP,
Distinguished participants,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

At the outset, I would like to express, on behalf of the Lao Government, my profound gratitude for the invitation extended to me by UNDP to join this important UNDP Asia-Pacific Regional Management Meeting under the theme “Achieving SDGs in the New Development Era”. This offers an excellent platform for us to discuss, exchange experiences and lessons learnt so that we can together chart out future development cooperation in order to realize our common objectives. It is a great honor for me to have the opportunity to share our development perspective on UNDP’s role in the changing future of the Asia-Pacific region.

The Asia-Pacific continues to be one of the most dynamic and fastest growing regions in the global economy. According to the recent Economic and Social Survey of Asia and the Pacific, economic conditions in the Asia-Pacific region remain relatively stable, thanks to resilient domestic demand and policy support, yet the region continues to be subjected to risk in growth, including sluggish growth in advanced economies, subdued prospects in most developing economies and stagnant global trade. It appears that growth has not translated into commensurate increases in decent jobs, which has also contributed to heightened income inequality. All this, may pose challenges in attaining the SDG goals and targets in our region.

At the country level, the Lao PDR, in its regional and international integration efforts, has benefited from regional economic dynamism and attained GDP growth by 7 percent on average over the past years with sharp decline in poverty rate. Despite this positive trend, reducing inequalities between urban and rural areas across the country remain challenging. In addition, significant investments in socio-economic development, including in infrastructure will be required for the Lao PDR to graduate from LDC status and transform itself from a landlocked to a land-linked country. Our economy is natural resources based, particularly hydropower, mining and agro-forestry, we recognize that there is a need to diversify our economy, increase productivity and invest more than ever in our human assets. Like many countries in the region, we have relatively young population. Therefore, our Government has invested more in education, health and other aspects of human development in order to transform demographic potential to demographic dividends.

Excellencies,
Distinguished participants,

UNDP has been a long-standing key partner for the Lao Government in tackling the afore-said development challenges and has led the development partners in their support to the implementation of our 8thNational Socio-Economic Development Plan for 2016-2020, our commitment to graduate from Least Developed Country status by 2020, reduce poverty and achieve progress on the Sustainable Development Goals. With UNDP support, the Lao PDR has been at the forefront of localizing the SDGs where 60% of the indicators of our national plan are related to SDG indicators. This will enable us to track progress towards the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals. In view of its specific development challenge, the Lao PDR has also adopted our national SDG 18 entitled “Lives safe from UXOs” with a focus on removing UXO obstacle to national development.

Excellencies,
Ladies and gentlemen,

Mobilizing domestic resources, including domestic private sector investment is crucial to achieve the 2030 Agenda. Towards this end, the Government has adopted a Strategic Plan for the Development of the Financial System (2016-2025) and Vision 2030. In addition to strengthening the banking sector and developing capital markets, the plan calls for extending the outreach of the financial system to rural areas and to integrate and supervise semi-formal institutions like Village Funds that have an extensive outreach to rural and poor households, particularly women. To achieve our national development objectives and the global 2030 Agenda, forging inclusive partnership is of great importance. In this regard, the Round Table Process, co-chaired by the Government and UNDP has become a key mechanism for development coordination and aid effectiveness while providing a dynamic space for dialogue on development priorities. It brings together the Government at central and local level, development partners, private sector civil society and others in the spirit of inclusive partnership around ten sector working groups and a number of sub-sector working groups. We were privileged to have Ms. Helen Clark attendance at the opening of the High-level Round Table Meeting in 2015, and Mr. Haoliang Xu, chairing the meeting.

Likewise, analytic support provided by UNDP has helped us in our policy development. Launched in June 2016, the Development Finance and Aid Assessment gives an overall picture of development financing and a set of policy recommendations. The 5th National Human Development Report launched in December 2016 analyses progress towards graduation from Least Developed Country status, exploring benefits and challenges, and providing key policy recommendations, which UNDP will support the Government in following up on in 2017.

Excellencies,
Ladies and gentlemen,

The Lao PDR still faces various challenges that continue to hinder our progress in development. We therefore value the support of UN, development partners, other stakeholders. We believe that the UN Partnership Framework 2017-2021 provides the overall framework for the United Nations in the country, marking a transition from “development assistance” to that of a strategic partnership and forms a solid ground for all UN Agencies to collectively respond to the national development priorities and ensure synergies between UN agencies in providing more integrated support to the complex challenges we are facing underlining the importance of “Delivering as One”. In this same vein, partnership and cooperation between UN agencies and development partners need to be further enhanced and new ways of working together to be explored, to foster synergies, avoid duplications and provide multi-dimensional cohesive solutions, particularly in view of the ASEAN Community integration.

Excellencies,
Ladies and gentlemen,

As we come together to exchange with one another our insights and thoughts on how to proceed and grapple with current trends and the future, I wish to outline several key areas that should be prioritized in our joint future development efforts. Universally and at the country level we all have a common endeavor and that is to eradicate all forms of poverty, reduce inequality and exclusion which is in line and truly reflects the theme of the 2030 sustainable development agenda “No one left behind”. Towards this end we must prioritize Human development and focus our efforts on measures to promote capacity building at all levels. Significant investment in education is incremental because the youth will be the ones that we will pass the torch to, they will be the ones that will carry on our work and to ensure that the future are in good hands we should strive to promote and increase access to education as well as improving quality and effectiveness.

Furthermore, in order to maintain resilience, growth and development in the Asia-Pacific region it is to my belief that integration within and between countries will be of great importance. Therefore, we should promote more investments to improve infrastructure at the regional and country level. I stress its importance because infrastructure will, metaphorically and literally, be a door for governments to provide access to basic public services for its people especially for developing countries in the region. Moreover, Infrastructure investment and development will also provide a surge in trade and commerce which will further reinforce the foundations that we have laid to maintain the stability and cohesion of the region. I wish to conclude by reiterating the importance of the work of the UNDP within the UN development system and at the country level to bring about tangible progress in the achievement of sustainable development. I would also like to emphasize that in the coming period, we count on UNDP - under its new Country Programme Document - to support the Lao PDR in realizing our aspirations: on poverty reduction, public administration reform and enhanced access to justice; on addressing the scourge of UXOs; on ensuring we have a clean environment, and are resilient to climate change and natural disasters; and on supporting our national planning and inclusive development partnership.

Last but not least, it is vital that over the long-term, countries in the region, UN development system as a whole and UNDP in particular and donor countries proactively pool all our efforts together to address our challenges and achieve sustainable development. Also, we hope to see the UN Country Team increasingly speak in one voice on key issues–either through the UN Resident Coordinator or through a lead agency. In this context, it is vital to strengthen the role of the UN Resident Coordinator who is also the UNDP Representative.

Thank you for your attention.