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Brooks Yeager Head of the United States Delegation to Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) Negotiations, INC-5 Statement on Financial and Technical Assistance Johannesburg, South Africa, December 4, 2000

Mr. Chairman, I said this morning that the U.S. wants a strong, effective but realistic POPs treaty. We understand that developing countries will need assistance in implementing their obligations and that this will require an effective financial mechanism. But the Convention's financial mechanism also has to be flexible to meet the needs of developing countries and to ensure that donor countries are able to maximize their contributions to POPs by using various channels available to them.

Even without a treaty, as I mentioned this morning, the United States has been providing technical and financial assistance for some time and intends to continue these activities. From 1997-2000, the U.S. directly contributed over $19 million in POPs aid, including $4.4 million to UNEP to support the POPs negotiations. In the past year alone, we have contributed nearly $3 million in POPs-related projects and over $5 million for malaria control, with a special emphasis in developing cost-effective alternatives to DDT, and as I mentioned this morning, we intend to greatly increase this contribution.

We understand that even significant national-level efforts such as ours and those of our Canadian colleagues and others are not a replacement for a coordinated financial mechanism for the convention. There will be significant local benefits from reducing and eliminating POPs. Therefore, the goal of assistance under the convention should be to assist developing countries in meeting their obligations. At the same time, we recognize that the Convention's control obligations must be carefully designed to ensure that all countries can meet them.

We have listened very carefully to the representatives of the developing countries at INC4, in Vevey and today. We understand that the Global Environment Facility (GEF) alone may not be able to satisfy all of the developing country needs, particularly for demand driven, quick assistance to small projects. That is why we believe that, under the guidance of the COP, UN institutions, multilateral and regional development banks, and bilateral programs, can play an important role to help developing countries meet their obligations. We also understand that all such mechanisms and institutions will need additional resources to assist with treaty implementation.

At the same time, the United States shares the belief of many donor countries who have already spoken, that the GEF can play a primary role in channeling international assistance for POPs. We understand the concerns expressed by developing countries, but we note the real progress that has been made in the GEF Council by all the countries represented there working together to make that institution more responsible, particularly through streamlining the GEF project cycle. We appreciate the presence of the executive director of the GEF here today, and note that he has articulated the GEF's intentions and efforts in this regard perhaps better than any party government could. Again, the U.S. understands that having the GEF serve as a major part of the financial mechanism for POPs will create additional demands for GEF funding.

The U.S. also supports the creation of a new Capacity Assistance Network (CAN) to facilitate and improve access by developing countries to technical and financial assistance and to report on unmet needs. After some discussion, including consultations with the GEF and UNEP, we believe the financial assistance aspects of such a CAN could be most effectively housed in the GEF, which has experience working with multilateral organizations to construct funding packages from many sources, while the technical assistance aspects should be placed within the Secretariat. These activities should and could be well coordinated.

Mr. Chairman, we are glad to be able to join our colleagues in the EU and other JUSCANZ countries in what we trust will be a productive proposal for discussion with our colleagues from developing countries this week. We look forward to that discussion and are prepared to enter into it with good spirit. Thank you.

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