MR. D.BOLDBAATAR,

HEAD Off' THE DELEGATION OF MONGOLIA,

AT THE 24TH SPECIAL SESSION OF THE UNITED NATIONS

GENERAL ASSEMBLY "WORLD SUMMIT FOR SOCIAL

DEVELOPMENT AND BEYOND: ACHIEVING SOCIAL

DEVELOPMENT FOR ALL IN A GLOBALIZING WORLD"

Geneva, 29 June 2000

Mr. President,
Distinguished Delegates,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

Peaceful advancement of the human family and its safe livelihood can no longer be sustained in a world impregnated by abject poverty, external debt burden, growing technological and economic gaps between the rich and the poor, wide-spread hunger and malnutrition, violence and discrimination, drugs and infectious diseases.

Mindful of the urgency to adequately tackle these problems, the international community has addressed them through, inter alia, organizing a series of world summits and conferences, proclaiming and observing UN decades and international years on specific social issues and target groups. The Copenhagen Social Summit was one of such world forums. It demonstrated that social development is indeed a question of global concern and, therefore, the implementation of its decisions requires a special attention.

The cumulative result of the conferences offers a strong basis for promoting the development cooperation and identifying the UN's role in this area. Development cooperation has rightly been given people-centered, sustainable gender-sensitive and social dimensions.

Mongolia attaches a great importance to the 24th Special Session of the General Assembly under the theme "World Summit for Social Development and beyond: achieving social development for all in a globalizing world".

We note with appreciation the Secretary-General's comprehensive report which provides us with a clear overview of the progress achieved during the last 5 years and the challenges that lay ahead. We believe that achieving Copenhagen goals would require much more comprehensive action, political will and adequate financial resources.

Mr. President,

Mongolia, like many other countries undergoing fundamental changes, has been grappling with the challenges of transition for the past 10 years. The market reforms have been boldly accelerated by liberalization of trade and prices, by large scale privatization and other economic measures.

The main policy measures aimed at reducing unemployment and promoting productive employment, inter alia, included: -institutional capacity building; improvement of the legal framework on labour relations; -promotion of self employment; -promotion of cooperatives; -mobilization of local resources for employment generation; -training and retraining programmes.

Aside from the above measures, unemployment benefits and tuition expenses for retraining the jobless have been introduced as part of a safety net.

The National Poverty Alleviation Proms sets forth the task of supporting employment of the poor segments of the society, promoting education and medical services, and setting up and strengthening a network of social welfare and care for the extremely poor.

Recently the Government of Mongolia has adopted the second phase of the National Poverty Alleviation Programme entitled "The National Programme for Support of Household Livelihood Capacity". This new Programme is close to the family or household issues, in other words, it will cover issues of all members of the family, including children, youth, disabled and elderly.

In the last 10 years, the country developed a relatively sound system of data collection on employment and poverty issues. As a result an institutional structure for overseeing social welfare services and activities was put in place. The surveys conducted in 1995 and 1998 jointly by the National Statistical Office and the UNDP show that despite increase in workforce resulting from a steady population growth, the rate of employment had been dropping, thus breeding poverty (the index of poverty growth rate in 1995 was 10.9 and in 1998 it was 11.7). Therefore, still much needs to be done.

To adequately address the social problems, the Government of Mongolia is mobilizing all possible resources and means, implementing different programmes and projects. For these reasons, in the foreseeable future, external assistance and supports would still be important.

Last month we held a seminar in Mongolia supported by the UNDP and SIDA on the emerging concept of human security. The debate here at this special session echoes much of our discussions held during that seminar. Employment is a basic precondition for ensuring human security at the level of household. Health as well is one of the important components of basic human needs and that of human security. An individual living in any country today links his or her daily life guarantees to the security of his/her own life, that of his/her family, income and the future of children.

Finally, I am confident that this Special Session of the UN General Assembly will mark an important step toward advancing the social development and implementation of the Copenhagen Declaration and Programme of Action.

Thank you for your attention.