Mr President, Ms Executive Director, Ladies and Gentlemen,
I would like to thank the Executive Director for her presentation on the organisational review. Since this is the first time I take the floor at this Executive Board meeting, I would also like to take this opportunity to welcome the two new deputy directors Ms. Hilde Frafjord Johnson and Mr. Omar Abdi. We would also like to recognize the role of Mr. Dan Toole and Mr. Bernt Aasen in ensuring a smooth transition.
Sweden welcomes the organisational review and would like to thank UNICEF’s management for their comprehensive response to the consultant’s report. It seems quite clear to us that this is an on-going process with many parallel tracks which will require different timetables and approaches., We welcome this opportunity to comment on the package as a whole, and look forward to regular updates on progress at upcoming Board meetings.
Sweden considers that the recommendations are well aligned with UNICEF’s priorities, as expressed in the MTSP for 2006-2009, and with UNICEF’s role in attaining the MDGs.
The consultants’ report seems well-founded and thoroughly researched. We believe that by implementing the recommendations in the organisational review UNICEF will become more results-oriented, strengthen its operational capacity, become better at knowledge-management, and strengthen the internal coherence within the organisation and with its partners. We also hope that this transformation will allow UNICEF to act more strategically on emerging issues that are of concern to the world’s children, youth and men and women. Such issues are for example migration and trafficking where UNICEF should take a more pro-active role.
Sweden welcomes the proposals which aim at sharpening programme focus, formulation and strategy, shift I in the report. An important part of this is making better use of the evaluation function and finding ways of disseminating knowledge within the organisation. In this context we are struck by our understanding that currently there is no systematic evaluation of country programmes, only of projects. Evaluation is an integral part of the programming cycle and an essential one if a more strategic approach is to be achieved. We therefore look forward to working together with UNICEF in developing the new policy on evaluation that will be discussed at the next Board meeting.
Sweden welcomes the focus on results in shift II as well as the intention to break down sectoral silos in favour of a more integrated approach. Also the proposals that aim at strengthening the role of the regional offices are important and welcome. We were however struck by the lack of focus on youth. This is disappointing as UNICEF is the organisation within the UN system that is mandated to work with youth. We would appreciate a response from UNICEF as to how youth will be dealt with in the emerging organisational structure.
UNICEF has undergone important changes as regards its “global knowledge function”, as expressed in shift III about UNICEF as a global knowledge leader for children. Sweden supports the idea that UNICEF should be a global leader on knowledge on children’s issues. But we are puzzled that this shift seem to be disconnected from shift V (manage for performance) where evaluation and audit is dealt with. It must be clear where the demand for evidence stems from. In our view it should be the national and local realities as experienced by UNICEF country and regional offices. We would appreciate it if the Executive Director could elaborate on this link and how you plan to take the recommendations in shift III forward. Will we for example see a strategy paper on how UNICEF is planning to take forward the recommendations regarding the global management function?
Sweden is pleased to see the emphasis on partnerships in shift IV and the clear signal it sends that partnerships are necessary for results. We share the analysis that opportunities have been missed in the past as a result of a piecemeal approach to partnerships. In our view, this is perhaps the most important recommendation in the whole report. The proposed response, however, is not a very forceful or visionary one. We hope, that when taking this forward, the full potential of the UN system, civil society, the International Financing Institutions and the Global Fund will be tapped to deliver results for children, youth and women. We look forward to a Board discussion on a strategy for partnerships.
On funding, Sweden is disheartened to see that there still is a very limited increase in the contributions to regular resources and that the projected trend is that the imbalance between the two funding sources will be accentuated in future. While welcoming the proposal to build on “the recent success with thematic funding” and look at how to receive more such flexible core resources, we would be interested to understand better what is meant by the idea of “fundraising packages built around portfolios of critical programme and advocacy interventions”. We would also like to know how UNICEF intends to work with its donors to increase the share of regular resources and to harmonise time-consuming and costly procedures connected with project funding.
We would also like to know more about the Field Support Unit. According to the document, this should be the first contact-point for regional offices with HQ. It is not clear to us how this function will relate to other departments dealing with policy and program, business practices, UN-reform etc.
In closing, we would like to thank UNICEF’s management and staff for having developed a draft BSB (Biannual Support Budget) in the format of a results based budget and for all the hard work put into this process together with UNDP and UNFPA to harmonise the format. We hope that in the next step of this process, even the programmatic budget can be developed on a results based format. We look forward to dealing with these two issues in tandem when discussing the decision on the BSB at the Executive Board meeting in January.
Thank you.