EU Statement – UN General Assembly: Informal meeting of the AHWG on Mandate Implementation Review

Distinguished co-Chairs, excellencies, colleagues,

I have the honour to speak on behalf of the European Union and its Member States.

The European Union would like to thank you for convening this meeting and for your continued efforts to advance the work of the Ad Hoc Working Group. We also thank the Secretariat for the comprehensive and useful note on possible review mechanisms and implementation models for clustered and collective mandate implementation reviews.

We welcome the work undertaken so far, including the Co-Chairs' report on criteria and modalities, which provides a useful and balanced framework for taking forward the implementation of General Assembly resolution 80/251.

We would like to underline three points.

First, on the overall approach, we believe it is important to maintain a clear focus on the ultimate objective of this exercise: improving the effectiveness, coherence and impact of UN mandates, and ultimately ensuring better delivery on the ground.

The ambition of the mandate implementation review must be to ensure that the UN system is focused on the objectives where Member States expect it to deliver.

In this regard, the criteria of relevance, impact and coherence provide a useful basis for assessing not only whether mandates are being implemented, but also whether they are collectively contributing to the intended results. 

At the same time, applying these criteria consistently will require a shared understanding of how they are measured. We would welcome further guidance, informed by the pilots and with support from the Secretariat, on the evidence needed to assess relevance, impact and coherence, and on how to distinguish functional duplication from complementarity.

Second, on the review mechanisms, we see considerable value in exploring collective and clustered approaches, particularly where mandates contribute to shared objectives across different parts of the UN system.

The Secretariat's note offers useful examples of how different approaches could be combined, including thematic clustering, coordinated multi-organ reviews and common evidence frameworks.

We would encourage us to make full use of this flexibility. In particular, we should look beyond institutional and committee boundaries where this can provide a more comprehensive understanding of how mandates interact, where complementarities exist and where implementation could be made more effective.

Third, on the pilot program, we believe this offers a particularly important opportunity to translate our discussions into practical experience.

This should be a collaborative and comprehensive exercise, bringing together Member States across different regions and working across all three pillars of the United Nations.

We would therefore encourage the Co-Chairs to consider a cross-cutting, cross-regional approach, whereby different UN Missions work together on the pilots, drawing on expertise and perspectives from across the membership and across the pillars.

We see merit in ensuring that the pilots are not developed as separate, siloed exercises, but rather as part of a coordinated effort, with opportunities to identify linkages and lessons across thematic areas. Individual pilots could retain a manageable thematic scope, while contributing to a broader and more comprehensive assessment of mandate implementation across the UN system.

Such an approach would also allow us to test how different review modalities can work in practice, including how mandates originating in different bodies can be examined collectively, how evidence and analysis can be shared, and how complementarities and potential overlaps can be better identified, while safeguarding essential functions.

Importantly, we would like to see Member States from different regions actively working together on these exercises. This would help foster collective ownership, build confidence in the process and ensure that the lessons learned are relevant across the membership.

We believe that the pilots should be practical and help us understand where the UN makes a difference and where improvements are needed. Their findings should inform possible mandate rationalization efforts and feed into the further refinement and codification of the criteria and modalities, as well as their broader application.

We hope this pilot phase can start as soon as possible around a first limited set of thematic priorities and will support the co-Chairs’ proposals and leadership in this regard. Also, as the pilots are envisaged for the main part of this session, we would welcome an update from the Co-Chairs on the next steps. An early launch would allow their findings to inform our consideration of the Secretary-General’s report on inactive, duplicative and fully implemented mandates requested in paragraph 24 of resolution 80/251, expected by the end of December.

Finally, we would underline the importance of maintaining momentum in the implementation of resolution 80/251 during the current Committee season. The use of concept notes, review clauses and more systematic consideration of existing mandates should become an integral part of our working methods.

To this end, we would encourage the Co-Chairs to continue liaising closely with the Chairs and Bureaux of the Main Committees to gather clear data on how resolution 80/251 has been applied during this session: for example, how many resolution processes started with a concept note or how many resolutions included a review clause. Sharing this overview in the Working Group would give us a factual basis for assessing progress and identifying where further support is needed.

Co-Chairs, colleagues, the EU stands ready to engage constructively in this next phase of the work, including in the development and implementation of the pilot exercises.

Thank you.