A/HRC/9/17 page 6 13. Thailand, in associating itself with the statement by the Non-Aligned Movement, encouraged the high-level task force to use a realistic and pragmatic approach in applying the criteria to various partnerships. In relation to targets 8.A to 8.F of Millennium Development Goal 8, it proposed that the task force obtain support from the United Nations and other international agencies instead of engaging in a new dialogue with other regional or subregional organizations. Apart from Goal 8, the global partnership should also cover other thematic areas, such as education, health and food. 14. China, supporting the statement of the Non-Aligned Movement, emphasized the lack of progress in attaining modest aspirations of achievement for development as set out in the Declaration on the Right to Development. It proposed a greater emphasis on the issues of trade, technology transfer and debt, as they were more important for developing countries and would target the criteria better. Furthermore, China stated that the clear aim of the right to development and the Millennium Development Goals was to support States and peoples by removing obstacles to development, both nationally and internationally. Therefore, the Working Group and the task force, in further enhancing the criteria, should focus on how to achieve the right globally and not focus on particular issues or impose human rights preconditions. 15. Switzerland supported the report of the task force in relation to its analysis of partnerships. In particular, it found the cooperation of relevant partners a positive indicator for the future work of the task force in analysing new partnerships. The delegation fully endorsed the recommendations of the task force at its fourth session. 16. Following these general statements, Stephen Marks, Chairperson-Rapporteur of the high-level task force, made a substantive presentation of the report on the fourth session of the task force (A/HRC/8/WG.2/TF/2). The report contained the detailed conclusions of the evaluation of each of the identified partnerships, namely, the African Peer Review Mechanism; the ECA/OECD-DAC Mutual Review of Development Effectiveness; the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness; and the Cotonou Agreement between the European Union and African, Caribbean and Pacific countries. In this respect, he stressed that the task force’s approach to evaluation of the partnerships was not aiming at producing a “scorecard”, but rather at engaging in a cooperative process to test the criteria by applying them in a dialogue with partnerships. With regard to the evolution of the criteria, the task force had learned from experience that the application of the criteria provided the empirical basis for their progression and refinement. Mr. Marks further explained that the task force had decided to slightly revise and reorder the criteria in preparation for making them more analytically and methodically rigorous and capable of serving as empirically-based tools to be used to improve the effectiveness of global partnerships in the realization of the right to development. The task force required additional time and resources to work with the complex web of global partnerships while ensuring their geographical and thematic expansion. In conclusion, Mr. Marks acknowledged that the right to development was broader than Millennium Development Goal 8, but the task assigned to the task force was to work with partnerships as defined in that objective. It would therefore follow the guidance of the Working Group in achieving a thematic balance within Goal 8. He endorsed the widely shared view that, like other human rights, progress in realizing the right to development needed to be defined in a framework that focused on structure, process and outcome, hence the grouping of the criteria as they appear in annex II to the task force report.