Joint Meeting of the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) and the Peacebuilding Commission (PBC)

Fostering global solidarity and conflict sensitive responses to the COVID-19 pandemic and its socio-economic impacts

Remarks by Ambassador T.S. Tirumurti,

Permanent Representative of India to the United Nations

19 November 2020

Mr. Chairman,

Thank you for this opportunity to speak at the joint meeting of the ECOSOC and the Peacebuilding Commission (PBC) in the 75^th anniversary of the UN.  

India has been at the forefront of fostering global solidarity and response to COVID pandemic.

As the pandemic has raged across the world, India has not let that scale down our engagement with the rest of the world in the sphere of peacebuilding and the more immediate COVID response. 

Earlier this year, responding to a call from UN Secretary General, India immediately deployed two medical teams at our peacekeeping hospital facilities at Goma, Democratic Republic of the Congo for MONUSCO and Juba, South Sudan for UNMISS respectively. India’s deployment saw our peacekeeping “Level-3” hospital facility in DRC upgraded to a Level-3 plus facility and “Level-2 plus” hospital in Juba, upgraded to a Level-3 facility. 

India has also contributed for the “Pipeline to Peacekeeping Command Programme” with a specific focus on issues of conduct and discipline. The peacekeeping related programme, over a period of three years, will help develop the capacity of future commanders and managers to lead by example and raise awareness of UN standards of conduct among their personnel. 

Peacebuilding has an important role in conflict sensitive response, which inter alia, should respond to the immediate requirements of our partners.  In this context, India has immediately repositioned the focus of the US$ 150 million India-UN Development Partnership Fund to support COVID-19 pandemic related projects in developing countries, including in SIDS.  The funds facilitated emergency procurement of ventilators and COVID-19 testing equipment, enhancing hospital capacities and supporting small businesses. 

In addition, India has extended medical-related assistance to more than 150 countries, pledged USD 15 Million dollars to GAVI, and have operationalized the SAARC COVID-19 Emergency Fund with an initial contribution of $ 10 million. We have pledged to contribute US $ 1 million to ASEAN COVID Fund.  India has activated its e-ITEC capacity building network to deliver medical expertise content for training of healthcare personnel of partnering developing countries. As the world’s largest vaccine producing country, Prime Minister Modi has pledged to deploy its vaccine production and delivery capacity to assist all humanity in fighting this crisis.

Mr. Chairman,

In order to foster global solidarity and response to the pandemic, at the very least, it is important that we ensure that countries do not take advantage of the pandemic to encourage and support terrorism and aggression, and indulge in infodemic to divide societies and communities.  However, in spite of UN Secretary-General’s call for ceasefire and while countries like India are trying our best to contribute to the global response to COVID, we see that such regressive activities have only increased, further worsening the socio-economic impact of COVID.

India has always strived to foster global solidarity across the world with our development partnership efforts fully respecting national priorities and ensuring that our assistance does not create indebtedness.  We believe that this is what will help countries build back better and faster and put them back on track for SDGs on Agenda 2030.

Whether it is with our neighbours under our “Neighbourhood First” policy or with African partners or with other developing countries, India will be a source of strong support to help them build back better and stronger. 

I thank you.