Let me first sincerely thank Ambassador Loayza Barea and his colleagues in the outgoing Bureau for their excellent and dedicated work during the past year. Some important achievements can be attributed to his leadership, among them the adoption of UNICEF’s education strategy. He has also steered the Board through the initial phases of work that is on our agenda for the year ahead, such as results based budgeting, the organisational review and the child protection strategy.
I am honoured to be succeeding him in presiding over this Board during the year to come. In the progress report on a World Fit for Children we have seen that important achievements have been made, such as a reduction in the number of children that die before their fifth birthday, increases in school enrolment and a decreasing gender gap. Still, huge challenges remain. UNICEF deals with many issues that are crucial for our future. Several of the Millennium Development Goals relate directly to UNICEF’s mandate and ultimately an important task for this Board is to maximise UNICEF’s contribution to these globally agreed goals.As the new President of the Executive Board, I look forward to continue work to further strengthen UNICEF, in close cooperation with the members of the Board and with UNICEF management.
I am happy to note the presence here today of representatives of UNICEF National Committees. I would like to take this opportunity to recognize the important contributions to UNICEF that the national committees make, in raising funds as well as raising awareness and building support of UNICEF and its work world wide. It is important that they participate in our work and that we also listen to their views and experiences. The financial contributions of compassionate individuals is at the heart of UNICEF and should never be taken for granted.
Several important decisions are on the agenda for this board meeting – the Biennial Support Budget, the Child Protection Strategy and the Evaluation Policy come to mind. Looking ahead at the year to come, we will be dealing with issues such as the Midterm Reviews, review of partnerships, and review of the criteria for resource allocation for country programmes, just to mention a few.
The Board has an important role to play in these and other issues that will come up. Therefore, I would like for the Board and the UNICEF management to work even closer together in preparing the different issues on the agenda. Working with and through the Bureau, I would like to involve the Board even further. As President I am committed to working with you in an inclusive, transparent and result-oriented manner.
In conclusion, I look forward to working closely with all of you for the benefit of UNICEF and ultimately for the world’s children.
Thankyou.