Rome, 19-20 February 2003

Mr. Chairman
Mr. President
Esteemed Delegates

At the outset, my delegation would like to express its belief that this session will come to successful conclusion under your able guidance. My delegation would like also to extend deep gratitude to the IFAD Secretariat for its sincere efforts devoted to the preparation of this session.

On behalf of the DPRK delegation, I would like to warmly congratulate all the staff of the IFAD on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the IFAD’s foundation.

Mr. Chairman,

During last 25 years, the IFAD has played an important role in the alleviation of the global poverty by enabling the rural poor to overcome their poverty through its grants and loans to developing countries.

The focus of its assistance on the priority sectors and areas without increasing administrative budget and promoting development and providing aid to those in need through close collaboration with other international organizations is highly admired as a good example in development assistance.

The success of the IFAD’s activities undertaken in line with its mission and objective is, in large part, attributable to the efforts of all its member countries which have taken active part in fifth replenishments.

In the DPRK, the successful implementation of the IFAD’s assistance made a contribution to enhancement of the livelihood of farmers in its targeting areas and the overall agricultural production.

In the name of my delegation, I would like to take this opportunity to express my thanks to the IFAD and other international organizations for having given sincere assistance to our people in their struggle for overcoming difficulties and increasing agricultural production.

The DPRK government took epochal measures in recent years to further increase the agricultural production and their validity is proved to be effective in practice.

Under the wise leadership of General Kim Jong Il, the great leader of our people, my country is now pushing ahead with the programme of increasing the agricultural production vigorously by giving priority to the seed revolution, encouraging double-crops farming, potato farming, making the land leveling throughout the country and stepping up large scale of waterway project.

Our efforts to boost the agricultural production on the basis of our economic system in keeping with our situation will assure the international organizations that their assistance continues to yield a fruitful result.

Mr. Chairman,

The International Conference on Financing for Development in Monterrey, Mexico, reached an important consensus for achieving the Millennium Development Goal to reduce by half the proportion of 1.2 billions of humanity in extreme poverty by 2015.

As stressed by the Monterrey Consensus, it is a pressing task for the international community to strengthen the capacity of developing countries for the development and, at the same time, to increase the financial and technical assistance of the developed countries so as to achieve the Millennium Development Goal.

The poverty is not alleviated yet in spite of the efforts of the international community. This situation underlines the importance of immediate implementation of the international commitment to allocating 0.7% of GNP of the developed countries to the developing countries as official development assistance (ODA).

The fact that the majority of the poor live in rural areas and world food security is the fundamental priority issue in poverty elimination shows that the international development assistance should be concentrated to the agriculture and rural development.

In this context we consider that ODA of the developed countries to the agricultural and rural development sectors should be further increased in accordance with the keystone of the declaration adopted at the World Food Summit last year.

The importance of the role of the international financial organizations such as IFAD is increasing as time passes. In view of the past experiences it is urgent to further strengthen cooperation among them.

All IFAD member countries should choose and apply their own methods on the rural development suitable to their situation taking note the reasons of the poverty analyzed in the Rural Poverty Report 2001 and strengthen their cooperation with the IFAD in accordance with IFAD’s Strategic Framework for the period 2002-2006.

Mr. Chairman

My delegation considers that this year’s work programme and budget submitted to this session have been formulated to activate the IFAD’s aid activities more effectively in full reflection of the demand of member states and supports them.

My Government will pay a deep attention to the IFAD’s assistance strategy and successfully implement the loan agreements, thereby further expand and develop cooperation with IFAD.

Thank you.