First Structured Dialogue on 9th NSEDP Financing Strategy

Your excellency, Madame Phonevanh, Deputy Minister of Planning and Investment,

Esteemed Government partners,

Distinguished Ambassadors,

Development partner representatives,

Colleagues,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

On behalf of the United Nations in Lao PDR, it is my pleasure to join the Deputy Minister in welcoming you to this first of three planned structured dialogues, which together will facilitate the development of a practical financing strategy for the 9th NSEDP and the 2030 Agenda.

First, I would like to thank you all for your attendance today, online and with a few key people in-person, following the COVID-19 regulations which as you know sets limits on the number of in-person participants at any event.

If you allow me, looking a few staps back, as was concluded at the High-Level consultation on the then-draft 9th NSEDP in December last year, following broad consultations, the Plan set out the national development priorities reflecting the Governments development ambitions over the course of the next 5 years. Following the review by the Party Congress and subsequent endorsement of the National Assembly in March, this was recently circulated to all.

What was also agreed, and needed next, was a clear plan for how to turn these priorities into action, drawing on the strengths and capacities of all stakeholders. The “implementation arrangements” suggested included the efforts to estimate the cost of realising the national targets and define a clear financing strategy on how they could be financed. In addition, it entailed the development of a robust Monitoring and Evaluation framework to allow for the measurement of progress and results towards the targets set.

Today, we have therefore reached an important moment for the work commissioned almost a year ago, and are closing in on the next major milestone with a presentation to the High-Level Roundtable Meeting.

This work is especially important in light of the challenging development context in which Lao PDR finds itself.

The COVID-19 pandemic has triggered the greatest economic recession in 90 years, setting back hard-won development gains and progression towards the goals of the 2030 Agenda, for which the world, and the Asia Pacific region in particular, was already off-track.

As UN Secretary General António Guterres noted in July, this creates:

“…a risk of a sharply diverging world, with one group of countries recovering and many others sinking deeper into a cycle of poverty, unsustainable debt and austerity, and potentially facing another lost decade of sustainable development.”

So, not unlike the rest of the world, Lao PDR is faced with the challenges of adapting, mitigating and recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic – both in terms of public health and the impact posed onto its socio-economy.

On top of this, the Triple Planetary Crisis of climate change, loss of biodiversity, and environmental degradation makes maintaining progress harder and achieving the sustainable and green development foreseen by the 9th NSEDP all the more critical.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has made it clear that climate change is already affecting every region on earth, on a scale that is unprecedented in thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of years.

Yet, across the world, the response to the crisis management remains vastly under resourced, with an estimated US$ 4.1 trillion gap between what is needed and what has been made available.

Adding to this, earlier this year, -- all things remaining favourable, -- Lao PDR was recommended for graduation in 2026 from the status of Least Developed Country. This reflects the important achievements that have been recorded to date, but also, against the backdrop of recent events - represents a complex transition that needs to be managed over the course of the next 5 years and beyond to secure a sustainable, high-quality, and irreversible graduation.

So, a top priority and the tall order of the day, is to look at the financing of this joint endeavour.

As Deputy Minister Mme Phonevanh and I noted in an op-ed published yesterday, too often the four financing flows available in any society - e.g., the state budget, domestic private finance, international private finance and Office Development Assistance, are not sufficiently and effectively mobilised to address critical development challenges.

The work, which we will discuss here today, therefore represents the initial step in the effort to develop a financing strategy for the 9th NSEDP that can support a more creative mobilization, and efficient allocation of all funding and financing flows for sustainable development.

Guided by the Addis Ababa Action Agenda and an Integrated National Financing Framework, the emphasis is on taking a holistic approach and rallying the support and engagement of a broad range of actors to work together towards this goal.

We are therefore delighted to have you all be part of this first structured dialogue to discuss the work done so far, in assessing the financial constraints and needs to achieve the 9th NSEDP and the SDGs and agree what it means for the coming steps.

This is a major milestone, closing the first phase of the process through the presentation of all the analytical work that colleagues have done over past months.

This will then serve as a foundation for the next stage, where we will discuss the policy options that can inform the financing strategy itself.

This is important work and has only been possible with the strong leadership of the Ministry of Planning and Investment, working closely with the Ministry of Finance, and the Ministry of Health.

The UN is proud to provide technical support to this effort, building on the foundation of the joint programme led by UNDP in partnership with UNCDF and UNFPA, as well as drawing on contributions from DESA, UNESCO, UNICEF, WHO and the whole Country Team.

So, it has taken a large cast to reach this point. But the next stages will require an even larger one still, and I hope we can count on the continued engagement of all those joining today, and all the institutions that you represent, to help the process move forward.

With our combined efforts, I am confident that we can deliver a robust and credible financing strategy that can help Lao PDR not only recover from COVID-19, but get back on track for the implementation of the 9th NSEDP and deliver a high-quality graduation from LDC status in 2026 becoming a middle-income country, that effectively can adapt, mitigate, and combat against the triple planetary crisis and accelerate progress toward the 2030 Agenda and national development priorities I the years ahead.

I look forward to our discussions today, and to the many steps ahead that I hope we can all take together.

Thank you.