Interview: China's role in UN affairs will get bigger: UNDP administrator

Thanks to China's own rapid development and its significant contribution to South-South cooperation, China has such a big role to play in UN affairs and the role will get bigger, said Helen Clark, administrator of UN Development Program.

In a recent interview with Xinhua, Clark said China has achieved a lot in its own development - lifting hundreds of millions of people out of poverty, the fast rise of a middle class, the development of cities in an orderly way, among others.

"So I would say to use the term that China has been a very proactive developmental state," she said. "The policy of the state is development...This has been the driving cause of the Chinese leadership, and that determination and that drive has got incredible results."

A report published jointly by China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and UN agencies in China said the poverty-stricken population in China decreased by 439 million, from 689 million in 1990 to 250 million in 2011.

According to the report on China's Implementation of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)(2000-2015), China has provided help to more than 120 developing countries in their efforts to achieve the goals. It has exempted due zero-interest loans owed by heavily-indebted poor countries and least developed countries to China six times, totaling 30 billion RMB (approximately 5 billion U.S. dollars).

China is a big player in South-South cooperation, said Clark. "It is very engaged with so many countries sharing experience, technical expertise, technologies, loans, (and) encouraging trade, investment...".

"I think in development often the most important thing is exchange of ideas, knowledge of what others have done to tackle similar challenges to the ones tackled by other countries," she explained. "So the role of China is a big big big role and it will get bigger."

On how to strengthen the North-South cooperation in current global partnerships, Clark said "we need new enthusiasm in the developed countries for the official development assistance spinning."

Quoting the example of the refugee crisis in recent months, Clark said that would focus the minds of developed countries on the root causes of the problem.

"No one flees their home because there is no need," she said. "They flee because things are bad and they have a hope that things could be better."

"So it's very very important to be investing in development and in the peaceful and inclusive societies back home," she added.

Clark was once the prime minister of New Zealand. Since 2009, she has been the administrator of UNDP,the UN's global development network which has been helping developing countries and the least developed countries to implement the MDGs over the past 15 years.

The UN's retiring MDGs, eight goals agreed by 189 UN member states in 2000, will be replaced by a new set of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) which are going to be adopted at an upcoming UN Sustainable Development Summit.

"These new sustainable development goals are a big step up on MDGs," said Clark, who suggested that countries like China which are so active in South-South cooperation can think about how their various development cooperation initiatives can support the SDGs.

Clark added that China's new Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank, the Belt and Road initiative and its huge South-South cooperation in general can all be vehicles for achieving the SDGs.

"Many positive things can be rolled out from here," she added.

On Chinese President Xi Jinping's visit to the UN, Clark said "it is wonderful to have the president of the People's Republic of China come to the UN, because it signals that China at the very highest level of its leadership is committed to the multi-lateral system."

"It's committed to the United Nations, sees the United Nations as relevant, wants to support the United Nations by the presence by the engagement in all the work of the United Nations," she said. "So we see this as a very very positive sign." Endi