The General Assembly,
Reaffirming its resolutions 34/213 of 19 December 1979, 44/211 of 22 December 1989, 46/182 of 19 December 1991 and 47/199 of 22 December 1992,
Having considered the statement made on behalf of the Secretary-General by the Under-Secretary-General for Policy Coordination and Sustainable Development before the Second Committee on 9 November 1993,
Reaffirming that the fundamental characteristics of the operational activities of the United Nations system should be, inter alia, their universal, voluntary and grant nature, and their neutrality and multilateralism,
Reaffirming also the importance of a more effective and coherent coordinated approach by the United Nations system to the needs of recipient countries, particularly at the field level,
Reaffirming further that the mandates of the separate United Nations sectoral and specialized entities, funds, programmes and specialized agencies should be respected and enhanced, taking into account their complementarities,
Reaffirming that assistance should be based on an agreed division of responsibility among the funding organizations, under the coordination of the Government concerned, in order to integrate their response into the development needs of recipient countries,
1. Reaffirms the principle that the assistance provided by the United Nations system should be in conformity with the national objectives and priorities of the recipient countries, that the coordination of various assistance inputs at the national level is the prerogative of the Government concerned and that the overall responsibility for, and coordination of, operational activities for development of the United Nations system carried out at the country level is entrusted to the resident coordinator;
2. Authorizes the establishment of field offices in Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Eritrea, Georgia, Kazakhstan, the Russian Federation, Ukraine and Uzbekistan, and decides that those offices shall be field offices of the United Nations system dealing with development;
3. Reaffirms that the field offices of the United Nations system dealing with development at the country level shall be coordinated by resident coordinators and shall comply fully with the provisions laid down by the General Assembly relating to the organizational structure, mandates and functions of the offices of the United Nations system dealing with development and to the role of the resident coordinator, in particular those provisions contained in its resolutions 34/213, 46/182 and 47/199;
4. Stresses that all field offices should comply fully with the provisions of its resolution 47/199 relating to the role and functions of the resident coordinator, in particular paragraphs 38 and 39 thereof, and reaffirms that the resident representative of the United Nations Development Programme shall normally be designated as the resident coordinator and that, in accordance with its resolution 46/182, the resident coordinator shall normally coordinate the humanitarian assistance of the United Nations system at the country level;
5. Reaffirms that field office activities related to public information, where in place, should follow the relevant provisions of resolutions of the General Assembly, in particular its resolution 48/44 B of 10 December 1993;
6. Also reaffirms the need to increase the number of common premises, in cooperation with host Governments, in a way that increases efficiency, through, inter alia, consolidation of administrative infrastructures of the organizations concerned, but does not increase the costs for the United Nations system or for developing countries;
7. Further reaffirms that all field offices should operate on a sound financial basis;
8. Reaffirms that all field offices are to be funded through voluntary contributions, including those from the host country, and that the United Nations regular budget is a financial source for currently mandated activities related to public information;
9. Decides to review the situation of all field offices as part of the next triennial policy review of operational activities for development within the United Nations system, through the procedures established for that purpose in its resolution 47/199;
10. Stresses that field offices in any new recipient country shall be based on the relevant provisions of General Assembly resolutions, including those contained in the present resolution.
86th plenary meeting
21 December 1993
