UN Geneva - Multimedia Newsroom : UNCTAD 16 Rebeca Grynspan Stake Out

Good afternoon, everybody.

Thank you for bearing with us.

We have Secretary General Rebecca Greenspan as announced on the Unkat 16A quadrangular conference, really setting the framework and the pace for the coming four years for trade and development.

Secretary Greenspan will address you briefly and then we have also a few minutes for some questions on the conference.

Thank you very much, Secretary.

[Other language spoken]

Thank you for being here.

[Other language spoken]

Well, let me first give you a participation snapshot of what we have today.

We have over 160 national delegations, including ministers and vice ministers that have come from capitals.

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres will address the conference on the 22nd of October.

Today we had the participation of the Federal Councillor Parmalan and they of the head of UNOCH in Geneva, Valavaya and also a Barbados because Barbados was the former conference in Bridgetown.

Still, we had the COVID-19 going on and so everything was virtual at that time, different times.

And we had the interventions by video of Mia Amor Motley, the Prime Minister of Barbados, precisely because she was the the President of the conference before then of the Prime Minister of Timor Leste Ramos Orta, and also of the prime a Minister of Vietnam.

So very a very strong inauguration.

And then we had also the address of the President of the General Assembly, Mrs Barbuck.

Then we have this week around 40 high level sessions and 24 expert panels that will cover trade, finance, investment and technology.

And the conference, as you know is fully open to the press.

All ministerials and thematic sessions can be followed in person or via a webcast.

And well, we come back to Geneva where this organisation was, say, formed in 1964 and we came to to Geneva once more after 1964 and 1987.

And this is the third time that we are here in Antat 16.

This reaffirms Switzerland's commitment to multilateralism and its role as a global hub for economic dialogue and diplomacy.

The theme of the conference is Shaping the future, driving economic transformation for equitable, inclusive and sustainable development.

And that reflects our goal to align trade, finance, investment and technology with shared prosperity.

So I am here to listen your questions and answer to anything that you want to know more.

But let me say that we've come to Geneva to declare that the future is still something that can be shaped and that we are here to shape it, and we are here to shape it together.

We live in a transition period where there are very contradictory forces interacting with each other and coexisting.

And we have agency, and we need to use that agency to shape the future in a way that will help all peoples around the world.

[Other language spoken]

My colleague Catherine is there for whoever wants to take the floor.

You know the drill name, media outlet and question Laurence, your Swiss news agency.

Thanks SG for the press conference.

So since the last press conference we had with you one week ago, there were the full meetings of the Bretton Woods institutions.

So when you look at the mood last week and and the first speeches since this morning, how confident are you that the final outcome will be in line with the concrete measures that you wanted to to see?

[Other language spoken]

Thank you very much.

You are absolutely right.

Many things have happened in one week.

I was in Washington in the in the fall meetings of the Bretton Woods institutions.

I was in the discussions in the G20.

And I would say that there there is like this paradox where people feel that the economy and trade has been more resilient than expected.

So the economy has performed better than was projected at the beginning of the year and trade has performed better than was expected also at the beginning of the year.

At the same time, we have rates of growth and rates of growth of trade that are much lower than they were in 2024.

So the two things are true at the same time.

And that's why I'm, I'm saying this is paradoxical.

I think that also, especially central bankers were referring to the economy also as it has been very resilient, but they were referring to the risk, the downside risks that they see on financial stability.

And so the the discussion is not only about the real economy, it is also about a maintaining stability in the financial front.

I not allowing for new bubbles to form and for the financial system to help the to recover the dynamism of the real of the real economy.

From our point of view here in Ankat, we expect an outcome, an outcome document that looks at the future.

And there are several things that we already can see in the document that we are hopeful.

But let me be clear, this is a decision of the countries and the outcome document has not been adopted yet.

Yes, but we expect A, a strong language with respect to the least developed countries and their graduation process, how to support them to graduate with a, a, A without the risk that graduation takes.

So you know, the focus on the vulnerable countries seats, LDCs, LLDCS will be there.

We also expect a important language reiterating FFD four and the agreements that we had an FFD four and the role of ANTAT in the outcome document of F54, especially on that on the reform of the international financial architecture, including the multilateral development banks and the capacity of the countries to do investment facilitation and trade facilitation.

And lastly, I think that we expect a very strong back to what Antac is doing right now.

The whole analysis and research pillar where we have been able to bring evidences analysis as we speak on the things that are happening today, not only the postmortem analysis.

I think that the ANTAC has become an organisation that is there before, during and after.

And I would say that maybe before we had an emphasis on being there before or the being there after, but not during when the present tense was important to take decisions.

And we expect the the outcome document to strengthen that a new development, let's say in, in process, in, in antac, at least these three things.

There will be things that we'll be announcing during the week, but I don't want to spoil them, sorry.

[Other language spoken]

Thank you very much for for this briefing.

[Other language spoken]

A couple of quick questions for you.

I mean, this conference is happening in a particularly challenging environment for World Trade, but also the UN system in which functions inside.

How would you describe the general tone among member countries convening today?

Is it, you know, I noted last week you were talking about cautious optimism.

Does that seem to reflect the tone being held by countries?

And secondly, what kind of commitments are you hoping to see this week, namely in terms of potential financial support for UNCTAD?

Are there any countries expressing kind of greater interest in, in, in, in supporting what the agency is doing being, being in political or financial financial terms?

[Other language spoken]

Thank you very much, Olivia.

[Other language spoken]

There is no way to conceal that yes, we, we, we are cutting 20% of our post in ANTAC and that represents 16% of our financial resources.

Now you can do that well or badly, and I think that Ankat has done it very well because we have prepared for this since 2021.

We have been reforming the organisation since then and especially in 2023 when we started with the liquidity crisis, we started to prepare for something that will have to do with solvency and not only with liquidity.

And so we were very careful in terms of deciding which vacancies to hold and which vacancies to fill.

And we got around 30 exceptions from the controller so we can fill vacancies, leaving aside the necessary number that the liquidity framework imposed on us.

So we did already had a very careful process of in in the liquidity in the continuation of the liquidity crisis in all 2024.

So we were prepared.

I would say, you know that I, I, I was Vice Minister of Finance of my country.

I have done that nationally.

And so I saw the writing on the wall very early.

Let me let me maybe say that, but it it that doesn't mean that it doesn't hurt.

Obviously 77 post for Antac.

[Other language spoken]

And we have then introduce efficiency reforms in the organisation.

We are using much more data science and AI in some of our work.

We have become more agile with the with some of the processes, we have more connections between the the divisions so we can be more coherent and we can have more synergies inside the organisation.

And we have also had very honest conversations with the other organisations within the UN.

We are talking to the with the regional commissions, we are talking to DESA, we are talking to UNEP, we are talking to OHRLS.

So we are really trying to bring the best of each of us.

Yes, in reprioritising where we are going to focus on and we have talked also to the member States in the sense that we are making shorter some technical cooperation programmes shorter but still on but also wider in terms of the people that can participate per course.

So we can cover more but with fewer number of personal a, a presidential, a participation more online obviously and well etcetera.

I won't enter into all the details.

So my second point is that because we have done that the mood within and that and with the Member States is very good.

You you can see in the negotiations we have difficult negotiations, not they are not easy.

You know, different groups have different positions, but the trust between the groups is much higher than I have ever seen.

And the mood, the, the attitude is very, very good.

Now let me be very clear on one thing, 2026 is not an expansionist year in terms of resources.

So from the regular budget we don't expect more resources.

We expect a cut of 16% of the resources I have said before.

So in 2027 we know that it will be a difficult year because you know the still the programmes of reform will be on.

But this is a conference that meets every four years.

So what we have asked the countries is to find the language that will give us flexibility towards the future.

We know that it's not possible now because of the reasons that we all know, but it doesn't preclude the possibility to discuss the issue when constraints will be less.

And so that is the language that I expect to find in the outcome, in the outcome document.

But we will be announcing partnerships and cooperation programmes during this week that also will give a a stock of a mobilisation of extra budgetary resources that we have mobilised from partners that are important for uncut in our XB.

Extra budgetary resources have been going up consistently.

So on that front, I think that we are doing better.

What is the mood between the countries?

[Other language spoken]

In Anchor very good.

Outside we have everything but the moot, the mooting in, in the in the fall meetings in in, in the fall meetings in the G20, for example, is it was I, I, I wouldn't say that was pessimistic because the issue of resilience was very strong.

Yes, the resilience of the economy and trade.

The only thing maybe to maybe refer to that is that resilience is not stability.

So the reasons why we are more resilient today not necessarily are the factors that will allow for a dynamic global economy in the future.

So in the transfer of the chairmanship of the G20 from South Africa to the US, the US said that they will put the emphasis on the issue of growth and the issue of more dynamic global growth.

So we will expect a more restricted agenda in the US hands and and that's what they have said.

But the issue of finance, financial stability, transparency and global growth will be the issues, the main issues and priorities for the next G20 in more general in the General Assembly.

I was in a bit surprised by first the attendance to the General Assembly in September because it went back to the levels that we had pre COVID for the first time.

All the rooms were full, you know.

So in a way is this, you know, all many of the news and articles before the General Assembly is about the decadence of the international system.

But when you go to the General Assembly, you have very high attendance, everybody in the corridors, everybody in the sessions, everybody participating and probably the two very, very optimistic groups, high beat were the young, the young people and the technological people, the ones that are on the frontier of technology, yes, that are seen an accelerated pace.

So maybe we should be with them more often.

[Other language spoken]

Is that OK?

That is OK.

[Other language spoken]

UNCTAD 16 Rebeca Grynspan Stake Out - 20 October 2025