Україна в якості віце-голови Виконавчої ради Програми розвитку ООН, Фонду народонаселення ООН і Управління ООН з управління проєктів головує на засіданні Ради.

Україна в якості віце-голови Виконавчої ради Програми розвитку ООН, Фонду народонаселення ООН і Управління ООН з управління проєктів головує на засіданні Ради.

Bureau Joint Statement Executive Board of UNDP/UNFPA/UNOPS Second Session

2022 UNFPA SEGMENT

STATEMENT BY THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR 31 August 2022, New York

Madam President,

Dear Members of the Board,

Distinguished colleagues,

I’m making this statement on behalf of the five Bureau members of the UNDP/UNFPA/UNOPS Executive Board from the Kingdom of the Netherlands, Kenya, Qatar, Peru, and my own country, Ukraine. We thank the UNFPA Executive Director Ms. Kanem and her team for providing comprehensive information on UNFPA's activities.

In this regard, I would like to highlight the following. First of all, we appreciate the leadership of the UNFPA Executive Director and the efforts of all UNFPA staff members in order to achieve progress by UNFPA in accelerating the three transformative results – ending unmet family planning needs; ending preventable maternal deaths; ending gender-based violence and harmful practices. It is essential for progress to be acquired in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

According to last year's results, we can point out a range of positive developments, in particular: - UNFPA maintaining a healthy financial situation, with core and non-core resources above the strategic plan targets.

UNFPA reached its highest revenue on record. It highlights the importance of UNFPA activities and the achievement of the three transformative results; - scaling up innovations and partnerships with other United Nations agencies, international financial institutions, the European Commission, and privatesector contributors; - strengthening UNFPA’s annual reporting with the use improved digital instruments; - reaching or surpassing most of UNFPA’s output targets of the Strategic Plan; - a positive trend in efforts aimed at gender equality and women's empowerment; - stable activities of UNFPA thematic funds and joint programmes which are flexible and support the strategic outcome areas; - significant attention to increasing humanitarian actions, given the importance of rapid response to emergencies and kick-start response operations; - successful strategic outreach and mobilization efforts, resulted in the increase of the overall number of donors to core resources.

We believe, however, that, despite these and other achievements, the main challenges that the Fund faces now are a decline in core funding and growing humanitarian needs caused amongst others by the aggression against Ukraine and the related food, energy and economic crisis. Therefore, the expansion of the Fund's donors will be critical. We support the need for austerity measures if projections fall short of targets to ensure financial sustainability and assessment.

In conclusion, we wish to encourage Member States to continue supporting UNFPA, including flexible funding. It is critical not only to reverse the negative  trend of the COVID-19 pandemic and accelerate programming to meet the three transformative results and the SDGs but also to adapt and adjust to an increasingly complex geopolitical context and respond effectively to humanitarian crises.

Thank you.