I, therefore, welcome our commitment to increase our official development assistance.

Our assistance to Afghanistan has a long term perspective.

With external financial assistance, our development efforts could be accelerated.

Some of our colleagues died while trying to provide assistance.

Australia recently provided an update of our bilateral counter terrorism assistance activities for inclusion in the CTC's Assistance Matrix.

We have undertaken to double our official development assistance in four years and are meeting our yearly targets.

This year, we increased our official development assistance by 23 per cent.

Working together, our countries identified a number of innovative mechanisms designed to generate assistance flows additional and complementary to official development assistance.

We submitted our new requests for assistance to the CTC in January 2005.

Last year, our development assistance exceeded its 2000 level by 90 per cent.

We are also stepping up our technical assistance to strengthen economic policy making in Africa, and opening two new regional technical assistance centers.

We continue to need the cooperation and assistance of friendly countries to supplement our resources, which still fall short of our needs.

In the early phase of that national recovery, our people and our nation received generous support and assistance from the international community.

Secondly, we have strengthened our methodology for the identification of States' needs for technical assistance.

We will therefore continue to need assistance in those areas that are beyond our capacity.

We the Governments must effectively coordinate our respective involvement, demonstrate flexibility and concentrate our assistance on needs and demand in order to best support and strengthen the central role of the United Nations in coordinating international humanitarian assistance.

For our part, Japan has provided humanitarian assistance in the form of blankets and food aid.

This assistance is in addition to the funding we require for our recovery and reconstruction efforts.

By 2006, we will fulfil the Monterrey commitment, and by 2008 our official development assistance will reach 0.5 per cent of our gross domestic product.

As to national aid, we intend to increase our volume of official development assistance to 0.51 per cent of our gross domestic product (GDP) by 2010.

For our part, the Government and the people of Malaysia will continue to extend assistance, within our limited means and capacity, to the people of Palestine.

As a beneficiary of this development assistance, Micronesia remains grateful for the support of our donor partners and the international donor community for the continued assistance extended to us.

Over one third of our cooperation funding is provided within the framework of multilateral assistance, and the increase over the past few years has, of course, also benefited bilateral assistance.

In that regard, we take this opportunity to express our sincere thanks to UNICEF and other international partners for their valuable support and assistance for our endeavours.

We are a country that believes in the assistance of the United Nations, and we demonstrate our faith through our openness, generosity and transparency with the Organization.

We are prepared to provide assistance to other States to develop national legislation and to share our experiences.

We wish to reaffirm our commitment to the region, including our intention to provide assistance, in cooperation with the international community, to advance the Kosovo Standards Implementation Plan.

In our view, that responsibility implies cooperation and assistance where necessary to enhance the capacity for prevention and protection.

But for our people to enjoy the fruits of greater democracy, we need urgent international economic and financial assistance.

Afghanistan is one of the major recipients of Norwegian assistance and one of our partner countries in development cooperation.

In the future, we will continue to provide assistance to mine affected countries to the extent of our ability.

We are also grateful for the solidarity and assistance of our brothers and sisters in the region and beyond.

For our part, both the World Bank and the IMF are stepping up financial, technical, and analytical trade related assistance.

During the visit of our Prime Minister to Kabul in July this year, additional assistance of 100 million was committed.

My Government is now working out a long term plan to increase and improve official development assistance within our means.

We are in the process of further expanding the scope and scale of our assistance and cooperation programmes for Africa.

RA So now you're about to see how we do our own movies here, with or without any assistance from anybody.

And with respect to Southern Africa, our humanitarian assistance is expected to exceed 12 million before the end of the year.

In our view, the provision of technical assistance to States is a key element for the effective implementation of the resolution.

Colombia wishes to highlight the work of the United Nations in our country and the assistance the United Nations has provided.

The European Community this summer pledged to increase our assistance for trade capacity building still further to 1 billion a year.

In accordance with that position, we have made multifaceted health care aid to the continent an essential component of our assistance.

We are better targeting our external assistance and capacity building programs, and we are ready to use our trade and economic muscle, when necessary, by demanding counter terrorism clauses in bilateral treaties.

Assistance provided in solidarity with those who need it is one of the essential pillars of our country's foreign policy, and our cooperation programme has been ongoing for more than 40 years.

I also express our appreciation to our close neighbours Australia and New Zealand for their support in helping us gain better access to their markets and their important areas of development assistance.