Goal 3: "Assist China's Efforts in Meeting Global Challenges and Promote International Cooperation"
The United Nations Development Assistance Framework 2001-05 (UNDAF) will be used to mobilise international and national resources to focus greater attention to national follow-up and implementation of international conferences and conventions to address priority issues.
With
a rapidly expanding flow of goods, services, information and people, nations
in this world increasingly cooperate and become more interdependent. Simultaneously,
issues that challenge the entire human society such as environmental degradation,
poverty, demographic changes, and social and political instabilities have
led to the realisation that these issues cannot be solved by a single nation,
but require the joint efforts of all nations. The UN has convened a series
of global conferences since 1990 to address these global issues and played
a major role in formulating international conventions, agreements and treaties.
For the first time in history, a global consensus has been reached on several
sets of goals and strategies in order to meet global challenges, and related
Plans of Actions have been adopted for the achievement of these goals. As
we were finalising this UNDAF, the Millennium Summit in New York reconfirmed
the commitment by the State and government leaders that national combined
with international action will be the only way forward. The Summit also committed
the world to fostering a Culture of Peace. The mandates and the goals of the
UN agencies, as well as the approaches and contents of its interventions are
quite often directed by the agreements made during these international conferences
and therefore can be said to be an integral part of the other two goals and
of all the objectives of the UNDAF. However, it is also true that the conferences
and other international proceedings of the UN are in addition a source of
new ideas and challenges which need to be introduced to the country and promoted.
China is important to the world, both economically and politically.
It houses one fifth of humankind, which it feeds on seven percent of the global
arable land resources. It is one of the five permanent members of the UN Security
Council and an important power in the Asia region. Many of the global challenges
faced by the world today: environmental concerns such as climate change and
ozone depletion; premature death due to smoking, diseases such as tuberculosis;
or the free movement of goods, services, people and information cannot be
resolved without the participation of China. Success to meet global goals
in China implies a major contribution to global success. The UN system aims
to support China in its participation as an active member of the world; and
to this end supports the implementation and integration of international conventions
and conferences into the national development process. At the same time the
UN system will support China in furthering its cooperation with other countries
on global and development concerns.