(3rd meeting) UN-Women Executive Board, First Regular Session 2026 Economic and Social Council Date: 19 February 2026 Language: English Transcript: https://transcripts.un.org/ar/asset/k1i/k1id8v0dus?lang=en Transcripts available through this tool are created by using automatic speech recognition and are not official records nor official documents of the United Nations. Official records and official documents are available on the Official Document System of the United Nations. --- Belgium · Vice President (Chair) · Sophie de Smith [17:01]: Good morning. Good morning, Excellencies, delegates, please take your seats and we will start today's session. So, good morning again and welcome back to the plenary meeting of the 2026 first regular session of the UN Women Executive Board. Under the first agenda item today, the Board will receive an update on organizational culture, as well as a presentation by the undp, unfpa, unops, NUN Women Staff Council and the Ombudsman for United Nations Funds and Programs, in addition to the Executive Director, Deputy Executive Directors and the Executive Board Secretary. Please allow me to welcome the following colleagues to the podium for the update on organizational culture. Prasoon Chakraborty, Director of the UN Resources Division, and Patricia Cortes, Member of the undp, unfpa, UNOPS and UN Women Staff Council. I am pleased to first invite UN Women Executive Director Sima Bahus to present an update on organizational culture. Madam Executive Director, you have the floor. UN Women · Executive Director · Sima Bahus [18:24]: Thank you, Madam Chair. Good morning, Excellencies. Madam Chair. Your Excellency, Ms. Sophie de Smith, Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Belgium, Vice President of the Executive Board. Excellencies, distinguished delegates, Dear colleagues, as we heard yesterday, we meet at at a difficult moment, but also at a defining one. Yet the need for the United nations and for UN Women is only growing. That is why today's discussion matters so much. It is about who we are as an institution and what we stand for. It is about whether our values are lived, not just stated. You have heard me say many times before. Our workforce remains our greatest asset and critical investment at UN Women. We are advancing organizational culture as a core institutional priority because our credibility as a global champion for gender equality depends on how consistently we live our lives and values within our institution. Culture is not peripheral to our mandate. It remains a part of our foundation. Over the past two years, we have kept you closely informed as UN women has undertaken significant transformation through the pivot to regions and countries. This is not merely a structural reform. It is a shift in mindset, in power and in practice. It places country delivery at the center of who we are as we navigate this transition. Alongside a more constrained fiscal environment, we have kept people at the center, strengthening inclusive leadership performance systems and fair treatment for both staff and affiliate personnel. We are listening as a continued practice of our leadership. Together with the Staff Council, we have organized multiple dialogue series webinars across regions, grades and contract types. These created safe spaces for candid exchange on careers, caregiving, pensions, contracts, workload and well being. They were complemented by structured follow up discussions through HR business partners and a dedicated PIVOT advisor. Excellencies we paired listening with tangible support. We delivered workshops on career labs with certified executive coaches for both personnel and people managers, accompanied by an online portal of tools for skills development, career planning and transitions. These were designed not only to respond to uncertainty but to build long term capability. We treated well being as a leadership responsibility, not an add on. We expanded confidential psychosocial support in multiple languages and flexible formats including individual consultations, group sessions, targeted support for teams experiencing high stress during the pivot. We also strengthened peer support networks and manager toolkits for leading with empathy. At the same time, we strengthened the systems that shape culture every day. So Excellencies, since January 2025 we have modernized performance management, simplifying goal setting, clarifying expectations, and placing greater emphasis on behaviors, collaboration and inclusive leadership alongside results. We developed practical guidance for managers to address underperformance in ways that are fair, structured and developmental rather than punitive. We devised our job description templates to be clearer, more inclusive and more realistic, using gender neutral language, distinguishing essential from desirable qualifications and widening access to opportunities. We have also strengthened integrity and accountability across the organization through preventive screening, clearer reporting pathways, expanded mediation services and stronger protections against retaliation. And we delivered and are delivering on combating racial discrimination as you will hear later this morning, Excellencies, let me ground this in clear data points that illustrate both scale and stakes. As of end 2025, 2/3 of our workforce are on affiliate contracts. This reflects funding volatility and the need for agility, but it also shapes how we think about culture. We are moving from a staff centered model to a whole workforce model, ensuring that fairness, well being and inclusion extend to all personnel regardless of contract type. Culture must be shared, not segmented. In 2025, in partnership with UNDP, we also transitioned around 1,100 former service contractors to the new affiliate modality of MPSA. This transition has improved consistency in entitlements, aligned salaries more closely with the UN benchmarks, increased flexibility in deployments and strengthened centralized governance, making our affiliate workforce more stable and more accountable. We also continue to rely on United nations volunteers who bring energy, innovation and proximity to communities and who remain an important entry point for diverse talent into the United nations system. So Excellencies, culture change is not episodic, it is cumulative. Independent reviews of our human resources function have highlighted where we must further strengthen capacity, data analytics and advisory support. Our 2026 strategic note and budget respond to this by prioritizing investments in HR capability, digital systems and leadership development so that reforms are sustained, not reversed. Our aspiration remains clear and ambitious. A UN Women that is ethical, inclusive, high performing and trusted. A workforce that feels valued whatever their contract. An institution that leads by example as we operationalize our new strategic plan. I look forward to standing with you, all, Excellencies, in partnership, in purpose and in shared responsibility as we shape the next chapter for UN women and for the women and girls we serve. I thank you in advance for the work we will continue to do together. All the best. Belgium · Vice President (Chair) · Sophie de Smith [25:48]: Thank you very much for the comprehensive update. Madam Executive Director, I now open the floor for Member States interventions. I have the distinguished representative of the Netherlands. You have the floor. Netherlands (Kingdom of the) [26:09]: Thank you, Madam President. I deliver this statement on behalf of Australia, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, Czechia, Finland, France, Georgia, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Norway, Portugal, the Republic of Moldova, Republic of Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and my own country, the Kingdom of the Netherlands. Today marks the second time that organizational culture is a separate agenda item in this Executive Board and we welcome this. A safe, respectful and inclusive work environment where diversity, equity and inclusion are advanced is fundamental to staff well being and for ensuring that UN Women can deliver on its mandate. When personnel flourishes, results are achieved. Organizational culture is also important as it relates to addressing racism as well as other forms of discrimination, protection from sexual exploitation, abuse and sexual harassment, as well as robust risk management and oversight. Above all, we would like to thank UN Women for its continued efforts to ensure safe, respectful and inclusive organizational cultures as outlined in the updates shared today. In order to have a more open and meaningful discussion, we encourage, as we did last year, UN Women to reflect more explicitly on the remaining challenges in organizational culture in future updates. While the report describes the systems and processes in place, we would appreciate further reflection on whether these measures are having the desired effect. To understand if there is progress, we need results frameworks with baselines and targets as well as data. As requested in our decision last year, incorporating data such as from staff surveys allows us to better understand where future efforts may need to be concentrated. Moreover, we encourage you and women to ensure that future staff surveys become more substantive, acknowledging that in a reform context, staff may be hesitant to express their views. In order to understand the impact of reform on staff, human centered indicators such as gender parity and geographic representation must be monitored and we would welcome reporting on this in future updates. The contributions of the Staff Council and Ombudsman help to provide a more comprehensive picture of organizational culture and the challenges faced by personnel today. Ongoing reforms and organizational changes such as UNITI and the ongoing pivot to regions and countries are having tangible impact on personnel. Could UN Women elaborate further on the impact of UN80 and the pivot to regions and countries on staff and personnel and what risks are foreseen? We encourage a more formal role of the staff Council within UN 80 task force and the Merger Task Force. Madam President, please allow us to highlight a few elements based on the background note provided and information shared during the informal we commend UN Women for its commitment to nurturing a diverse and empowered workforce and advancing an inclusive organizational culture and expect these key principles to be reflected in UN Women's upcoming HR strategy. Could UN Women share more on this strategy and how it intends to report to the Executive Board on its implementation in line with last year's Board decision? Furthermore, we appreciate the information shared on affiliate modalities. Could you and women elaborate on the anticipated impact of the pivot and the current financial constraints on the use of affiliate workforce? Thank you. Belgium · Vice President (Chair) · Sophie de Smith [29:58]: I thank the distinguished delegate from the Netherlands for her comments and I invite the Secretary to respond. UN Women · Secretary [30:18]: Thank you very much to the delegate from Netherlands and all the other delegations who associated with the statement and very much appreciate your consistent call on all of us, the UN system overall, including UN women, doing ever better every day in terms of ensuring a inclusive culture, respectful culture, and that is at the core of course of a feminist organization where we want to make sure that all of our workforces, the voices of the workforce are heard and our colleagues are empowered to express their views without hesitation and that they are heard of what I want to you mentioned some you asked a question specifically on the people strategy and some of the elements what you were raising actually are very much elements that have come true in the consultations on the people strategy. So just as a background delegations, you may remember that we were asked to develop an HR strategy, human resources strategy and actually what we did as part of discussions early last year, we decided that we would broaden the concept from human resources strategy to people strategy so that it has the broader perspective and we have actually engaged an external resource, very experienced resource who also supported us to do the HR benchmarking and she has conducted and I think this comes to your point that sometimes colleagues are hesitant to express views. This is why we wanted to have an external person who will be the one with whom colleagues across the organization can be sharing their perspectives. And just to say some of the elements that have come through there through the discussions as we now are entering the actual preparation and development of the people's strategy. First of all the importance of looking at career opportunities. And this is where I'm very, very pleased to say that we have decided and we will be I believe this week advertising already position for workforce planning and talent management and leadership. And I think these are critically important in view of the feedback of the colleagues as well so that the organization is really able to invest and ever more important in light of the Pivot and the UN80 also the whole element of developing our leadership, looking at the leadership cadre and the quality and whom do we recruit to the organization and ensure that our existing management and leadership has the right type of leadership capabilities. Performance management, of course, absolutely critical element doesn't come as a prize to you and that links to the conversation also on accountability and clear expectations. Important element of the people strategy will also be improving change readiness in the organization. So we are already in the middle of the implementation of the pivot. The UN 80 process will undoubtedly bring various types of changes and it's important that all of our colleagues in the organization have the readiness to adopt to the changing environment. Change is there to stay for all of us, of course, continuously and similarly also investing in the learning culture, in really in the growth mindset in the whole organization. And lastly I would say the importance of ensuring and we will have an opportunity of course later this morning to hear from the Ombudsman also. But one of the issues that came up was the importance of improving the awareness of all of our workforce of the availability of the informal conflict resolution mechanisms. That's an important element and that is in addition to all the various HR action, human resource policy related actions that Prasad so now director of HR can be elaborating more on. Thank you so much. Does he want to elaborate, Prasoon? UN Women · Director HR · Prasoon Chakraborty [34:39]: Thank you, Madam President. So first of all I also wanted to actually acknowledge because we had a few bilaterals with some of the delegations, your support to UN women's workforce during these discussions where you have actually explicitly said and asked us about how we are ensuring duty of care and also I mean in terms of the HR team itself and I know in recent discussions some of you had said that how are we ensuring that while we are implementing this, we are also ensuring that the morale of the team and those who are actually involved in some of these processes are we are taking care of those. So I think we really appreciate the support that you have been providing in that and actually checking on us in terms of how we are doing. So thank you for that. On the Pivot specifically, to start with, we did develop Very specific strategies and support strategies dedicated to addressing the needs of the PIVOT itself. And we have been doing it for any related change management process that may come, or that has been the case in the past. So whenever we have an organization wide initiative that impacts a number of colleagues, personal, we would, that would be the best practice that we will follow that just like we did for pivot, we will have dedicated support strategies and we do that and develop it very in very close consultation with our staff council representatives and through wider consultations. So that has, that has actually worked well. We have received a lot of feedback from colleagues. Of course there are lessons learned as we go into these processes, but we try to make sure that every follow up iteration actually takes care and factors in those feedback. And in that context, the people strategy that's being developed has actually even started with a survey of all personnel across UN women, just to get a sense of what would colleagues want to see in a people strategy. So instead of us deciding in a smaller group to say maybe this is what a strategy would need, it actually started with a survey of the needs of what can go into a strategy. Following that, we had multiple layers of conversations on what should go into the strategy. So I think we are quite. We were of course planning to finalize it a bit sooner, but due to some of the other priorities, we then also expanded the scope, as de Demadi just said, from just being an HR strategy to actually a more comprehensive people strategy. But we are very close to finalizing this and we should be able to report on that as we have been discussing, even during the decisions. So that's coming. The other thing you raised was about the surveys. So while we did a survey specific to the development of the people strategy, we are planning to roll out the next workforce survey somewhere sometime in 2027. And this is something which we have also discussed with the UN Board of Auditors who had also, when they were looking at the HR function, they had certain questions in terms of the timelines for some of these activities. Knowing that we are in the midst of rolling out Pivot, we are in the midst of developing a new people strategy and what would be a good time to actually do a bit of a pulse check and what would be a good time to do assessments on whether this is working to the desired extent that we want. So in taking into account all of that, we are looking at 2027 for the next workforce survey. The last survey was done in 2022 23. So indeed the plan was again to do a survey in 25. But given the other developments, we are actually now looking at 2027, when we will actually be able to report even more in terms of colleagues feedback after we have implemented Pivot, which has an end date of December 2026. So these are some of the areas that we thought we'll update you on. And I'm sure when you hear from the Staff Council colleagues and also from the Ombudsman, there will be other elements related to some of the feedback that they have been hearing on PIVOT and other organizational changes which may come up. Thanks. Belgium · Vice President (Chair) · Sophie de Smith [39:02]: Thank you very much to the Secretariat for this comprehensive update. I see no further comments or statements, so let's move on to the segment on the undp, unfpa, UNOPS and UN Women Staff Council. I now invite the member of the UNDP, UNFPA, UNOPS and UN Women Staff Council, Mrs. Patricia Costess, to provide a presentation. Please do go ahead. UNDP/UNFPA/UNOPS/UN Women Staff Council · Member, Staff Council · Patricia Cortes [39:28]: Thank you, Madam Madam Vice President, UN Women Executive Leadership, distinguished delegates, esteemed colleagues, thank you for the opportunity to address the Executive Board today. Our remarks align with the stemming delivered by our Chair of the Joint Staff Council during the first Executive Board session of undp, UNFPA and unops. Alongside my colleague Athena Rebutiaco Cortez, we would like to acknowledge the constructive engagement of UN women's leadership during a period of profound institutional change. We appreciate the sustained dialogue and the concrete measures taken to support personnel through transition. Since 2024, the pivot to regions and countries and internally driven reform has been one of the most significant transformations at UN Women. We recognize the progress achieved through the PIVOT Human Resources support Plan as well as the professionalism, resilience and adaptability demonstrated by colleagues throughout this transition. At the time, it is essential to reflect on lessons learned and one stands clearly consistent. Early and genuinely inclusive consultation remains a core element of reform. This lesson is particularly relevant as UN women now navigate. Externally driven UN AD proposals admit unprecedented financial constraints, while internally led reforms allowed consultation processes. Externally driven reforms require even greater attention to transparency and engagement in country offices where capacity is already stretched. Efforts to achieve efficiencies can and intentionally erode critical operational capacity. You may agree with me that personnel are not administrative overhead. They are the core delivery capacity required to secure results at scale. Structural or merger decisions must therefore strengthen, not weaken this capacity. From personnel perspective, this underscores the need of early, transparent and inclusive engagement while safeguarding UN women's distinct normative mandate and specialized expertise. In this spirit, we highlight four guiding principles. First, cost saving measures must prioritize reductions in non essential expenditures and high cost structures rather than disproportionately affect vulnerable contract modalities, including general service and affiliate personnel. Second, equity must remain central across organizations, regions, duty stations and contract types to prevent deepening structural disparities across the workforce. Third, expanding responsibilities must be matched with stability, realistic workloads and appropriate resources. The forthcoming UN Women People strategy to which we have contributed through consultations with personnel across contract types offers an opportunity to strengthen working conditions, consolidate progress on the PSA contract modality, and enhance stability, career development and fairness. Ultimately, the success of UN Women's Strategic Plan 2026, 2029, the Pivot UN80 and future structural decisions will be measured by UN Women's ability to deliver for women and girls in increasingly complex environments. Let me emphasize there is no mandate delivery without the people who deliver it. This reaffirms a simple but fundamental truth. People must remain central to UN Women's mandate and effectiveness. That impact depends on a workforce that is empowered, valued and protected. UN Women personnel stands ready to engage constructively and responsibly. We ask in return that both our Executive Board and our organization to uphold a shared commitment to people centered leadership, recognizing that investing in personnel is essential for effectiveness, credibility and successful outcomes. I thank you, Madam. Belgium · Vice President (Chair) · Sophie de Smith [44:42]: Thank you very much, Mrs. Cortes. I'm now pleased to invite Mrs. Kirsi Madi, Deputy Executive Director of UN Women, to offer some remarks. Remarks. Madame Madi, you have the floor. UN Women · Deputy Executive Director · Kirsi Madi [44:53]: Thank you so much, Madam Chair. And actually, I forgot just to. I should have already mentioned earlier. I really appreciate all the delegates here in the room because I understand that the negotiations went until the early hours of this morning on the. On the decisions. So really appreciate everybody's presence here. Really. Patricia and Athena, I really, really want to start by thanking you. Thanking you for your first of all, for your remarks, Patricia, which you delivered on behalf of both of you, but most importantly, for your continued dedication to conveying the perspectives, insights and concerns of all colleagues across all the duty stations. UN Women I really would like to acknowledge and appreciate the sustained engagement of the UN Women Staff Council throughout the implementation of the PIVOT process and in terms of the broader organizational context, the Staff Council has remained a consistent and constructive partner. This continued collaboration is reflecting a shared objective to ensure that UN Women personnel are informed, heard, empowered and supported. As the organization advances important decisions and ensures that it's best placed to have a real impact in the lives of women and girls. Across regions, country, offices, headquarters, colleagues are often feeling increasing strain in more complex operating environments. Colleagues continue to demonstrate resilience and deep commitment to to our work. The leadership, the technical expertise and the contextual knowledge of our colleagues is underpinning the delivery of our mandate. The PIVOT to the regions and countries has been an important strategic adjustment in how UN Women is organizing its presence and capacity. Early, consistent and inclusive consultation is a critical enabler of a successful change process. From the onset, UN Women conducted extensive consultations with personnel across headquarters, regions and country offices through interviews, meetings and workshops. This approach, combined with the Staff Council's active engagement and the establishment of a consultation platform, helped to ensure that the PIVOT Human Resources Support Plan was informed by the diverse perspectives of our workforce. As reaffirmed last year, our commitment to supporting personnel throughout this process remains a priority with a continued focus on clear, consistent and centralised communication. Lessons learned from this process will continue to inform future reform processes, including through insights from personnel, the perspectives shared by the Staff Council and also informed by the experiences of other UN entities. In this broader reform context, where we are now as UN Women is engaging in the reform discussions under UN 80, we are mindful of the impact such processes may have on our personnel. As with the pivot, we remain committed to transparent and inclusive engagement with personnel. While taking due note of the guiding principles outlined by the Staff Council today. These considerations will continue to guide leadership decision making as we move forward and will be reflected also in the forthcoming People Strategy which I already outlined in the previous intervention. UN Women leadership is also mindful that organizational processes may be experienced differently across the workforce and that periods of uncertainty, transition and change require particular care and attention. In view of this, this year we will continue to prioritize well being of personnel through sustained psychosocial support, stress management services and mindfulness tools offered in multiple languages. Furthermore, we have developed our first Entity Wide Mental Health Action Plan to continue fostering a healthy and supportive working environment and to strengthen a culture of wellness across the organization. So, looking ahead, I would like to emphasize that the implementation of the 2026, 2029 strategic plan, our engagement in system wide reform and our work in complex environments are grounded in a workforce that is valued, supported, empowered, respected. As the Executive Director said, our workforce, our personnel, our colleagues is our greatest asset. And this is not only words, Staff Council remains an indispensable partner. And I really would like to conclude again as I started, by thanking Patricia and Athena for their continued engagement and tireless efforts. Thank you. Belgium · Vice President (Chair) · Sophie de Smith [50:37]: Thank you very much, Madam Deputy Executive Director. Allow me to also express my thanks to the dedicated staff of UN Women. We have said that yesterday already in our statement, but I want to expressly reiterate it. And we thank you for your dedication and also for upholding the mandates. Thank you very much. So, delegates, the floor is open for any comments or questions you may have on this item. I see no requests for the floor, so let's move on to the last segment under this agenda item regarding the Annual Report of the Office of the Ombudsman for United Nations Funds and Programs. For this segment, I would like to invite to the podium the following colleague Patricia Voigt, Ombudsman for United Nations Funds and Programs. I am pleased to invite the Ombudsman to present his annual report to the Board. Mr. Ombudsman, you have the floor. Please go ahead. Ombudsman Office · Ombudsman · Patricia Voigt [52:01]: Distinguished members of the Board, Dear Colleagues, thank you for the invitation to present the 2024 Annual Report of the Office of the Ombudsman for UNDP, UNFPA, UNICEF, UNOPS and UN Women to this forum here. We really appreciate your support and your invitation for that. The Office of the Ombudsman provides impartial and confidential services to address work related issues and support conflicts. Our guiding principles are informality, confidentiality, neutrality, and independence. The purpose of the Office is to provide a safe and confidential space for colleagues to be heard, and we support the conflict resolution through exploring options, conflict coaching, shuttle diplomacy, mediation, and team or restorative processes. As well, we also provide feedback and observation on trends and systemic issues, and in doing so, the Office reduces the human, operational and potential litigation costs of unresolved conflict, particularly during periods of rapid change. In the reporting period of 2024, the office handled a total of 712 cases, which for us was an increase of 26% compared to the previous year with 565 cases, and of those 712 cases, 52 related to UN Women, which for UN Women represented a 67% increase from the previous year. This growth is welcome. It proves increased familiarity with our services and greater confidence among colleagues to put informal resolution first. And an informal first approach is expressly supported also by the General assembly. And our Office works well with colleagues at all levels in UN women to ensure that this is being kept in mind. And we heard about this earlier as well. We also had training and outreach activities which reached 9,700 personnel, or a little bit more than that across the five organizations. And it serves to enhance awareness as well as build capacity for essentially conflict prevention and conflict resolution, including empowering individuals to do so themselves. Our mediation cases also increased in 2024, with a total of 119 new mediations received and 128 mediation cases closed during that year. This is essentially mediations that were already ongoing before but closed in the year after. Mediations showed a 67 a 76% successful resolution rate and eight of the mediations we had related to UN Women. That sounds like a small number, but it corresponds to the workforce ratio to our office overall. Mediation participants replied in surveys and we sent surveys to all participants that they would recommend mediation to a colleague. Regardless of the outcome, it's a very successful program as per our mandate. The report highlights some systemic observations and these include, for example, the following. There is a rise in concerns related to psychological safety and mental safety, including in high pressure environments. Visitors reported mental strain linked to perceived unclear expectations or stress or job insecurity or communications seen as hostile. But the Office observed that mental health awareness and resources have notably expanded and this trend is continuing. And we heard about this already from UN women. This is much welcome and also needed. Unfortunately, use of power is the second theme. The office addressed many cases of supervisor supervisee conflict and these involved alleged or perceived misuse of power ranging from alleged threats or in micromanagement to performance evaluation claimed to be biased. And likewise on the other side of the spectrum, we had more supervisors who reported feeling harassed when their feedback that they gave to supervisors to supervisees was misinterpreted. So it's kind of going in both directions. Almost always a communication issue. The Office recommends expanded training in people management for all supervisors. And here to clarify, the day to day experience of individuals is not with the executive director or the deputy. It's with the individual line manager, of course. And that's where we think some more focus could be made. Finally, just before I refer to the report, otherwise is change management and restructuring already in 2024, the office supported personnel affected by these processes were perceived unclear communication favoritism or job insecurity led to stress and an increase in mistrust. This was already in 2024. We saw generally a pattern of greater conflict avoidance by personnel because of the concern over potential job security. Also something to be expected. Unfortunately, the office offered mediation coaching and clarification support and more recommendations can be found in the the blinking is one minute. Is that what that means? Or 14 seconds. Okay, there's more observations in the report. I just want to give you a brief snapshot for 2025, a few seconds. We had 832 cases, which is another 17% increase and for you and women, another 25% increase in cases in 2025. So we've been busy. But again, this is not a bad sign. This is just showing greater trust in the informal and constructive dialogues. And then finally my appreciation and thanks to Team Staff Council of UN Women, the HR Team Executive Office of UN Women. Everybody has been very willing to collaborate, engage promptly and propose also proactively mediation, which makes a tangible difference, as well as the Member States here. Thank you for your support. Finally, I'm aware that the word is Ombudsman. That is a term given to us by the General Assembly. I'm aware that it does not sound gender inclusive, especially in this forum. It's not my idea. I'm happy with Ombudsperson or just Ombuds Office or something like that. So just to clarify that, thank you very much for your time. Happy for any questions. Belgium · Vice President (Chair) · Sophie de Smith [57:55]: Thank you very much, Mr. Ombuds person. So, for your for your very comprehensive presentation. And I'm now pleased to invite Madam Sima Bahus, Executive Director of UN Women, to share some remarks. Madame Executive Director, you have the floor. UN Women · Executive Director · Sima Bahus [58:15]: Thank you very much, Madam Chair, Vice President of our Executive Board Excellency Sophie Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Belgium. Allow me to start by expressing my Sincere appreciation to Mr. Voigt for your comprehensive presentation of the 2024 Annual Report of the Office of the Ombudspersen for United Nations Funds and Programs, highlighting the Office's key initiatives and areas of focus and also the outreach that you have been doing that is successfully bringing to your attention what needs to be brought to your attention by our personnel. So thank you so much. We continue to place strong value on the contribution of your office, Mr. Voight, in promoting constructive conflict resolution through informal and also through confidential services. This contribution for us remains especially relevant at these times of change as the organization, as you know, continues to adapt to an evolving working environment. UN Women has taken note of the increased engagement, as I said, with the Office of the Ombudsperson over the reporting period, which signals both your continued relevance and colleagues continued confidence in accessing the services that you are presenting and supporting. This trend also reflects sustained effort to strengthen outreach alongside UN Women's ongoing focus on ensuring personnel are aware of available avenues for addressing workplace concerns. Building on this progress, we would like to acknowledge the dedication of your team, Mr. Voigt, whose efforts continue to provide valuable support to UN Women colleagues across the globe in diverse contexts. And in closing, I would like to reaffirm you in women's leadership continued commitment to close collaboration with your office in fostering a safe, supportive and respectful workplace And I thank you very much. Belgium · Vice President (Chair) · Sophie de Smith [1:00:24]: Thank you very much, Madam Executive Director. With that, we have heard all the presentations as part of this segment. Distinguished delegates, the floor is now open for any comments or questions you may have on this item. I see no request for the floor so we can conclude our discussion on this agenda item. Distinguished delegates, let us continue with agenda item 6 on anti racism and racial discrimination, where the Board will receive an update on UN Women's efforts to address racism and racial discrimination. In addition to the Executive Director, Deputy Executive Director and the Secretary, allow me to welcome the following colleagues to the podium. Prasun Chakraboshti, Director of the Human Resources Division, and Shoko Ishikawa, Deputy Director of the Policy Program and Intergovernmental Division. I am pleased to invite Madam Deputy Executive Director Niaradzai Gunbunda, I'm very sorry if I pronounce this wrong, to present the update on UN Women's efforts to address racism and racial discrimination. UN Women · Deputy Executive Director · Niaradzai Gunbunda [1:01:51]: Thank you, Madam Chair, Vice President of the UN Women Executive Board, Excellencies, distinguished delegates and colleagues, good morning. Pursuant to the Executive Board Decision 2024 6, I'm pleased to update you on UN Women's efforts to prevent and address racism and racial discrimination and do build on the comments and the statement by the Executive Director at the beginning of agenda item 5. It is also very heartening that at the beginning of the strategic plan for 2026-2029, as the board, you have placed at the heart of your agenda the core issue which is very difficult to address in society, about racism and racial discrimination. Guided by the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, we address racial discrimination as a matter of equal rights, equal opportunities and dignity. As per the United Nations Charter, racism and racial discrimination arises not only through overt acts, but also through policies, institutional practices and everyday interactions. Attention to conscious and unconscious bias, including how language and norms shape inclusion, are therefore very, very important for address with intentionality the issues around race, racism and racial discrimination, both as a culture and as a policy issue and as a programmatic issue. At the annual session in June 2025, we updated you as the Board on Progress, including our response to the Joint Inspection Unit Review. Three of the six JIU recommendations have been addressed and work was advancing and is advancing among others, particularly on the system wide collaboration and accountability. Since then, we further strengthened institutional practice and program delivery, guided by the JIU's emphasis on measurable results, leadership, accountability and UN system coherence. I also build on DD Kesimadi's statement on the People strategy and which can be elaborated further in terms of this week on ending on racism and racial discrimination, we embedded non discrimination competencies into performance management and strengthened safeguards including participation in ClearCheck 2.0 which now covers racism and racial discrimination in misconduct screening. UN Women remains active in interagency mechanisms including the UN Network on Racial Discrimination and Protection of Minorities. Safe reporting and protection from retaliation remains essential. We continue fostering environment where concerns can be raised without fear, including when issues do not meet formal misconduct thresholds. As we have heard from the Ombuds in his statement, sustained progress requires sustained capacity. Resource constraint remain a challenge and predictable investment is needed to maintain momentum on this very important issue. Within our Human Resource Division, a Senior Advisor on Diversity, inclusion and Leadership supports integration of anti racism and anti discrimination into policies, into guidance and workforce practices, helping ensure internal systems reflect external standards. The Global Equity and Inclusion Advisory Board drawn from across UN Women also provides an important sounding board bringing intersection perspective on inclusion. Now let me turn to program because addressing racism and racial discrimination is not just an internal issue of how we run the organization, it's also how we embed the intervention on racism and anti discrimination in our programmatic work. In the strategic plan in 2025, UN Women established the Human Rights and Non Discrimination section to strengthen policy and programmatic action on racial justice within the broader Human Rights and access to justice framework while reinforcing governance, clarity and oversight. We continue to advance the work at various regions and we've shared with you our work in the various regions including in Asia, in Pacific, with the Roma community, the Ashkali communities and others and continue to build on the work of the Afro Descendants decade that the UN is observing. Global uncertainty risks inequality. When we have uncertainty and let resources, it also increases the inequalities and therefore continue to require a strong commitment for us as an organization on the issues of racial inclusion and non discrimination. Let me conclude with three considerations. First, continued engagement with human rights frameworks are critical. Second, sustained investment by leadership and with resources and at country and global level with data to support evidence based policy. Third, coordination across UN mechanism strengthens coherence and effectiveness. Leaders and managers play a critical role in modeling inclusive behavior and addressing bias while HR actions and equitable workforce practices reinforcements credible internal efforts. Addressing gender equality requires us to have that intersectional approach in addressing racism and racial discrimination. It requires courage for those experiencing discrimination to report, therefore requires systems like we have had that are able to respond, but also requires us to continue to show the evidence on the actions that we've taken, including in the people strategy and other information you have heard. As UN women will continue to work transparently in partnership with Member States and the UN system, ensuring dignity and equal opportunity to all is also reflected, including in our advocacy action. I thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. Belgium · Vice President (Chair) · Sophie de Smith [1:08:37]: Thank you very much. Madam Deputy Executive Director. I now open the floor for Member States intervention with respect to this agenda item. Okay. I see no request for the floor, so I think we can conclude our discussion on this item. Oh, Distinguished delegate from the Netherlands, you have the floor. Netherlands (Kingdom of the) [1:09:14]: Thank you, Madam Vice President. And thank you to all the panelists with us today. The Kingdom of the Netherlands commends you and women for its commitments to address racism and racial discrimination. And I thank you for sharing these honest and genuine updates with us. We recall a JRU survey on this matter that found that 21% of respondents had faced racism or racial discrimination within the United nations system. As an agency in this system, your commitment to foster a safe, respectful and inclusive organizational culture is therefore essential. It is crucial that all staff can work free from racism and discrimination and work with dignity. This, in turn will also strengthen trust, collaboration and organizational effectiveness. We commend you and women for your efforts undertaken so far and encourage the continuation of advancing this important work. We ask you, how does UN women engage with other UN agencies on this important matter to ensure that lessons are being exchanged across agencies to increase effectiveness? And given that many of our discussions this week focus on budget cuts, UN80 reforms and ongoing organizational changes, we wish to underscore the importance of safeguarding diversity and inclusion. Amidst these complex processes, tracking the impact of the pivot to the regions and countries, and financial constraints on staff diversity as well. And if so, could management share further insights on any observed impact so far? I thank you. Belgium · Vice President (Chair) · Sophie de Smith [1:10:45]: I thank the distinguished delegates from the Netherlands for his questions, and I now invite the Secretariat to respond. Oh, Tunisia. Sorry. The distinguished delegates of Tunisia, you have the floor. Tunisia [1:11:00]: Thank you so much, Madam President. Tunisia. Thanks to Secretaria for the update on the implementation of the Equity Plan pursuant to the executive board decision 2024 26. We welcome the efforts to address racism and racial discrimination across institutional culture, human resources policies and programmatic work grounded in international human rights standards, including the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination. Tunisia underscores the importance of sustaining these efforts through adequate resources, accountability and measurable impact, particularly in the current financial context. In this regard, Tunisia would like to ask a question. If you allow, we would appreciate further clarification on how UN women intended to measure the Effect effectiveness of anti discrimination actions both internally and in its programmatic delivery. Belgium · Vice President (Chair) · Sophie de Smith [1:12:03]: I thank you. I thank the distinguished delegates of Tunisia. Are there any other requests for the floor? No. Okay. So I now invite the Secretary to respond. UN Women · Secretary [1:12:20]: Thank you, Madam Vice President. I will request defeat my colleague Prasun to respond to the HRR related issues if they get an initial comment from Shoko on the programmatic issues. UN Women · Director HR · Prasoon Chakraborty [1:12:40]: Thank you, Madam Chair. So in terms of the interagency work, our approach is actually fully aligned with what you've seen that comes out through the GIU findings, which actually is actually a good compendium now for the across the system in terms of what is working, what is not working. And that's why the recommendations came through. Those recommendations through the GIU report, how we particularly our emphasis is on integrated action, leadership, accountability and there is, as you know, there is an HR network within the ceb. So there are these forums where we are actually contributing, participating and also piggybacking on the best practices as a relatively small organization where we are actually looking at practices of the bigger agencies which may be a bit more well resourced. And it has been very good collaboration because whenever we have reached out to our sister agency saying can we actually adopt what you have already done because you know, instead of reinventing the wheel. So it is actually a work in progress and it's actually working well already. And we have also discussed during the, I think negotiations as you've heard, that how we can develop more indicators which is also coming out of the SG's action plan and also being guided by the Anti Racism Office of the United Nations Secretariat. So we are now looking at already using some of these existing indicators and parameters that exist, plus collaborating with the interagency areas. So we are specifically, we are an active member of the HLCM Working Group on DEI and it collaborates on various areas including with the Staff Council. We are also coordinating with the Staff College on the training programs which could be available for all personnel on anti discrimination and anti racism. And that's also something which we will start reporting more in terms of data and indicators because as we had mentioned briefly during some of the negotiations, we are at this stage looking at the activities, but we'll translate it more into indicators so that we can report on this more concretely. So that's what's coming up for us. But already we appreciate the support we get from our sister agencies and how we have been collaborating on this. UN Women · Deputy Director, Policy Programme and Intergovernmental Division · Shoko Ishikawa [1:15:15]: Yes, thank you very much for the question on the programmatic dimension in terms of how we are able to track progress within our Integrated Results and Resources Framework. Indicators in the reporting process in monitoring our programs, we have disaggregation that we require for the reporting based on thematic areas, but also the leave no one behind category as we as we call it, and that includes not only sex, age, geographic location, but also looks at key populations and within that. We therefore try and capture whether we are working with Afro descendant women, whether we are working with indigenous communities, with ethnic minority communities. So these disaggregations allow us to capture the extent to which we are paying attention to the diverse races. Thank you. Belgium · Vice President (Chair) · Sophie de Smith [1:16:20]: I thank the Secretariat for its response. Are there any further comments or questions? If not, then we can conclude our discussion on this item. Let's continue with agenda item 7 on risk management where the Board will receive an update on risk management and principal risks facing UN Women. In addition to the Executive Director, Deputy Executive Directors and the Secretary allow me to welcome to the Allowing me to welcome to the podium the following Anna Karin Jatforce, Director of the Strategy, Planning, Results and Effectiveness Division, and Sarah Hendricks, Director of the Policy Program and Intergovernmental Division. I am pleased to invite the Director for the Strategy Planning, Results and Effectiveness Division to present the update on risk management and principal risks facing UN Women. Madam, you have the floor. UN Women · Director, Strategy Planning Results and Effectiveness Division · Anna Karin Jatforce [1:17:24]: Thank you very much, Madam Chair. Good morning, Excellencies, distinguished delegates, dear colleagues, on behalf of UN Women, very pleased to present this annual update on risk management in UN Women and principal risks facing the organization. Today I will briefly present an outline, Enterprise Risk Management and how it Works in UN Women, followed by the principal risks we are facing and the key measures in place to mitigate those risks. So, as you have heard, our risk management framework is anchored in the three lines model where the first line is responsible for identifying and managing risks at all levels, while the second line represents corporate functions that establish standards and provides advice and management oversight and guidance. The third line, meanwhile, consists of our independent both internal and external assurance providers and all three lines report to you and are accountable to you as our governing body. So, building on this framework, we have continued to strengthen our risk management maturity. In 2025, we revised our risk management policy and procedures and we've also introduced not just global but regional risk management committees to strengthen our internal governance at all levels. Second, we reviewed our risk profile, doing both continuous bottom up and top down monitoring of risks, and this has been supported by the introduction of risk deep dives held at senior management level. Third, we have incorporated micro risk assessments into our strategic note risk registers and we further integrate risk management into our new performance and results monitoring system. And this has enabled end to end linkages between risks and planning, monitoring and reporting. And last but not least, we continue to do quality assurance reviews of all strategic notes and their risk registers. We enhance training for personnel and partners, and we conduct regular tracking, all of which have helped to strengthen compliance. So, looking ahead for this year, we are introducing mandatory program partner risk registers, as you heard yesterday, to strengthen early detection and risk based assurance of our partners. So, turning now to the principal risks, we have identified five. First, financial sustainability. No surprise there, we have decline both in quality, the level or the type of funding. And this may affect our ability to deliver on strategic objectives. Not only for you and women, of course, that's the case for the system at large. We mitigate this risk by supporting and advancing predictable funding, particularly regular resources, but also enhancing transparency and increasing organizational resilience through diversification and enhanced efficiency. Second, in the external operating environment, we have political, economic climate and humanitarian crisis, all of which may adversely impact on our operations. We mitigate this risk through partnerships and increased focus on UN coordination, but also engaging in country level monitoring and advocacy and ensuring our own crisis and climate readiness and response. Third, the evolving multilateral environment could bring challenges to advance our triple mandate. We mitigate this risk by careful strategic positioning of our triple mandate, deepening partnerships and accountability, and continuing to advance our pivot to regions and countries. Fourth, on cyber security, exposure to cyber attacks, data breaches or digital disruptions may compromise our operations, information integrity or service continuity. UN women mitigates this risk by strengthening cyber controls, managing any emerging tech risks and leveraging digital governance and innovation. And last but not least, any perceived or actual lapses in accountability, transparency, ethical conduct may result in loss of stakeholder trust and caused reputational damage. UN women mitigates this risk through an intentional integrated approach to integrity and safeguarding, survivor centered prevention and response to sexual exploitation and abuse and sexual harassment, and strengthened risk based controls. So, in closing, UN women recognizes that delivering on our triple mandate demands that we take risks, informed and deliberate risks. In this regard, our Risk Appetite Statement guides decision makers to balance strategic ambition with responsibility. We are prepared to accept high tolerance for contextual and strategic risks, especially in crisis or fragile settings where the opportunities for impact is the greatest, while maintaining a very low appetite for safety, fiduciary, safeguarding and accountability risks. And we have ongoing monitoring and clear escalation to ensure that risks remain within acceptable thresholds and support a positive and responsible risk culture. Madam Chair, this is the end of our brief presentation. We thank you for your continued guidance and oversight and we are here to answer any questions you may have. Belgium · Vice President (Chair) · Sophie de Smith [1:22:51]: Thank you. Thank you very much, Mrs. Director, for this very comprehensive presentation. I now open the floor for Member States intervention with respect to this presentation. The distinguished delegates from the United Kingdom. Madam, you have the floor. United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland [1:23:18]: Excellent. Thank you. I deliver this statement on behalf of Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, the Kingdom of the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Norway, Spain, Sweden and my own country, the United Kingdom. We welcome UN women's strengthening of its enterprise risk management approach. We particularly appreciate the integration of risk considerations into the Strategic Plan 2026-2029, the establishment of regional risk management committees and the introduction of risk registers for programme partners. These are important steps towards a more coherent and mature risk culture across the organisation. We also welcome the presentation of UN women's principal risks. The information shared is helpful and provides the Board with a clearer picture of the risks you are navigating. Looking ahead, we would welcome a clearer articulation of those principal risks complemented by assessments of inherent and residual risks, including the severity of the potential impact and likelihood of the risks materialising. It would also be good to clarify how UN women judges the extent to which the mitigations in place are effective. This would help the Board better assess the level of risk UN women is carrying. We underscore the importance of ensuring that risks related to UN80 and future organisational change processes are fully integrated into enterprise risk management. Reporting the principal risk, entitled Strategic Positioning Risk, would benefit from clearer articulation of the specific UN 80 related risks and corresponding mitigation measures. This would strengthen the Board's ability to engage meaningfully on safeguards during a period of significant system wide transition. Could UN Women set out the UN 80 related risks and corresponding mitigation? We encourage UN Women to continue building on the positive foundations already in place. By further aligning its risk management reporting with system wide best practice, we see value in adopting the more comprehensive practices as used by undp, UNFPA and unops, including maturity assessments and self assessments against the HLCM risk maturity model, detailed risk appetite thresholds and risk dashboards that link risks to performance and resourcing decisions. What are UN women's future plans for enhancing its risk management? In addition, we underline three cross cutting priorities. First, risk appetite and tolerance. Clear operationalised risk appetite statements are essential for ensuring consistent decision making, particularly in high risk contexts such as fragile states or complex procurement environments. Second, risk culture and accountability. A strong organisation wide risk culture grounded in risk Informed decision making is foundational. All personnel have a responsibility to identify, communicate and manage risks. We encourage continued efforts to promote openness, staff confidence in raising concerns and management accountability at all levels. Third, data controls and insurance. Robust systems for monitoring, verifying and reporting risk, supported by audit, evaluation and external oversight, are critical to safe safeguarding resources and maintaining the trust of Member States. Finally, we reaffirm our commitment to effective, transparent and accountable multilateral organisations. Strong enterprise risk management is essential to ensuring that programs deliver sustainable results for those they are intended to serve, particularly in the world's most challenging contexts. We thank UN Women for its continued engagement with the Executive Board and look forward to ongoing dialogue on this important agenda. Belgium · Vice President (Chair) · Sophie de Smith [1:27:02]: Item. Thank you. I thank the distinguished delegate from the United Kingdom and I now give the floor to the distinguished delegate from Rwanda. Rwanda [1:27:13]: Thank you, Madam President, Executive Director, distinguished members of the Executive Board, Excellencies, Rwanda thanks to UN Women for a comprehensive update on the risk management and for the continued strengthening of the enterprise risk management framework. Madam President, UN Women is operating in an increasingly complex global environment marked by fiscal pressures, geopolitical uncertainty, climate and humanitarian crisis and rapidly evolving digital risks. In such conditions, effective risk management is not simply a technical exercise. It is fundamental to sustain the reverie, protecting institutional credibility and ensuring that resources translate into results. Allow me to highlight three brief Run the notes with concern the continued pressure on negro resources. Predictable and flexible funding remains essential, particularly for normal tive and coordination functions that are essential to the UN Women's mandate. So continued efforts to diversify the funding based and strengthen financing dialogue will therefore remain important. Second, the United nations system continues to evolve, including through the UN 80 initiatives. Risk management must remain closely linked to decision making and governance. The sound risk analysis helps to ensure that reforms aimed at efficiency and coherence reinforce rather than advertising, constrain mandate delivery. Third, Rwanda welcomes the emphasis pressed on accountability, safeguarding and cybersecurity. As digital transformation accelerates across the UN system, sustainable attention to data protection, oversight and responsible use of emerging technology will be critical to maintain trust and operational resilience. Madam President, we also welcome the steps taken to strengthen risk culture across the organization, including the integration of risk consolidation into planning and monitoring processes and establishment of strengthened government structure at regional and corporate levels. These measures contribute to more informed decision making and more effective oversight by this board. Ultimately, risk management is not only about preventing loss, it is about enabling the organization to act where needs are greatest while managing exposure responsibly. Rwanda Dilafor encouraged UN Women to continue deepening this work and to Keep the Board legally informed of emerging risks and mitigation efforts. Rwanda wishes to reaffirm its full support to UN women and its mandate. I thank you very much. Belgium · Vice President (Chair) · Sophie de Smith [1:30:10]: I thank the distinguished delegate of Rwanda and I now invite the Secretariat to reply. Please. UN Women · Director, Strategy Planning Results and Effectiveness Division · Anna Karin Jatforce [1:30:18]: Thank you so much to the distinguished delegates for the support and for the keen interest in this topic. So I will try to answer some of the questions that were raised. Indeed, we do continue. We do not have a static approach to risk management. We see continued room for improvement and continued maturity. And in this regard, we're actually very pleased to have very recently benefited from a internal audit from our internal audit services that has provided confirmed a lot of the progress made, but also identified some concrete actions for further strengthening. So that will guide us and our management action plan for further strengthening. But what I can say, and both delegates spoke to this. It really is about translating the strong policies and procedures and processes and systems now in place to fully consistent application at all levels. So that takes the change and continuing support in building a positive risk culture. We have induction packs for our risk focal points to help them do their jobs. We do regular trainings. Just this week we've had fraud risk awareness for our fraud risk champions across the organization. We're building toolkits with a focus on really simplifying and support application of available policies. Secondly, of course by not seeing risk management as a compliance exercise, but really as a value add tool that is truly embedded within our monitoring, our planning processes. And yes, the integration with prism, our planning system has helped that because that means that when our offices are looking at monitoring the implementation of their strategies and work plans, they're looking at risks. And as part of that meaning they would need to make any adjustments as they go along. But also very importantly, this systematic integration of micro level risks. We spoke yesterday about the partner risk registers that inform the project level. That's very rigorous due diligence we do of projects to make sure that risks are effectively managed. Environmental and social sustainability risks and particularly critical interventions and the partner, including with the private sector. And all of these then inform the are integrated into the risk work. Specifically with regards to the risk appetite. I just wanted to mention that we integrate this into the risk assessments by requiring all of our business units to compare what is the residual risk ratings with each risk against the approved risk appetite levels after the mitigating actions have been taken. And this really helps us at each individual unit level determine are the mitigation measures adequate or do we need to have additional actions to make sure that we Bring the residual risks within the desired risk appetites, while of course achieving results. Specifically on the risk tolerance which was mentioned, we apply this through ongoing monitoring with all of our units having to assess these risk residual risk ratings against tolerance boundaries. And that really makes sure that when we are working on achieving our objectives, we don't do so at the cost of risk that is unacceptably high. And we track this also on a quarterly basis through our quarterly business review. One example of this being, for example, with private sector engagement, there are limits around exclusionary criteria, for instance, and for program partner management, there are certain eligibility criteria around partner advances, if there are age advances, etc. And all of this then informs the actions that we take in our day to day management. So I hope this has helped clarify how we operationalize the processes that we have in place. But looking forward to continued engagement and certainly we do see room for continued improvements in this area and fully committed to increasing our risk maturity in all areas. Thank you. Belgium · Vice President (Chair) · Sophie de Smith [1:34:34]: I think this. Oh please. UN Women · Deputy Executive Director · Niaradzai Gunbunda [1:34:41]: Thank you. Thank you so much, Vice President, for giving us the floor to respond to the issue of risk in relation to the strategic plan, in relation to how we are responding. The mitigation, the mitigation approach that we have first is that to really appreciate that when we were developing the strategic plan, you as our board continued to really remind us and encourage us to design with risk in mind. And the agility questions that you were raising with us on how agile, flexible our strategic plan is was very important. And one action that came out of it was the joint planning that we had with UNDP, UNFPA and UNICEF and to identify within our SPs the areas of joint work. That in itself was very important for us around the point raised by our risk officer around duplication and making sure that we have predictability and also within the context of unity. My colleague, Director Sarah Hendricks, who speak more to it, we also manage the risk through our coordination mandate. ECOSOC last year adopted a resolution strengthening the Interagency Network on Gender equality which meets every month for which there is a recommendation to also meet at SG level twice a year. This is also part of us as a system mitigating together any risk to our work on gender equality. So leveraging our coordination mandate is an embedded that we have and equally through our civil society division to ensure that we also listen to the rights holders, to the women in communities, to the civil society organizations in terms of how they are perceiving the organization and some of the issues that we can respond together to in managing risk. The last is to really appreciate that we also manage risk together with you as our member states, including in the CSW1 area over the last few years that has been very important important is managing risk on the regression to gender equality, the pushback on gender equality, and us as UN women, therefore providing the analysis that has also been very, very critical to us as UN women. Because the second principal area of risk that has been mentioned is around the context and therefore managing and supporting and responding to that risk together has been important and we have noted some of the risks related to clawback on progressive legislation or funding and these are risks that impact our implementation and our delivery as an organization. So we also want to really appreciate the integrated approach that we have both within the organization, with other UN agencies, but also embedded in the work together that we do with you, including through the Commission on the Status of Women. So we want to thank thank you very much and I would like to ask through you, Vice President, for our Director Sarah Hendricks to add any further comments. UN Women · Director, Policy Programme and Intergovernmental Division · Sarah Hendricks [1:38:02]: Thank you indeed very much, Vice President and indeed thank you so much to the group of Member States who asked very wisely the question about strategic positioning risks and the ways in which UNAD is incorporating and embedding a very clear understanding on behalf of UN women of strategic positioning risks as it relates across the work packages and of course specifically to the work package on the merger assessment. And my very short response to you is yes, indeed, Our analysis across UN 80 and inclusive of the merger assessment is to incorporate strategic positioning risks within this. Let me unpack for you briefly how this is being done. Number one, we are ensuring first of all that there is a very clear understanding of the external environment from a risk perspective as it relates to our approach and positioning on UN 80 more broadly and on the merger assessment specifically. And indeed, as you heard in the dedicated session yesterday, it is in fact the understanding of the external environment and its ongoing changes that are part of the rationale for looking at the current reforms and what those proposals might look like. It is the external environment that presents risks on things such as political instability, on shifts in ideological trends, on the erosion of democratic institutions, as well as on the growing pushback and rollback on gender equality gains alongside shrinkage of civ space. All of this is part of how we look at what is the institution of the future that is required to optimally deal with this increasingly well orchestrated and well funded environment of risk. To that end, a very fulsome risk matrix that looks at the risks and presents risks along the lines of political, legal, operational and financial risks have and are being developed which you will see outlined in the forthcoming Merger Assessment Report. These include risks to mandate protection. It also includes risks to the disruption of services as well as procurement systems, risks to workforce integration challenges, risks of course to funding volatility and alongside that donor uncertainty. All of these risks are being well assessed as well as looked at in terms of mitigation strategies and we look forward to your review of those and the ongoing consultation and dialogue together. As I close the response to this, allow me just to say that within UN women risk based approach and its maturity on that we see a number of approaches as very critical to strategic positioning risks. Number one is that we remain very focused on the delivery of our triple mandate and on strengthening our strategic clarity as well as institutional agility to ensure that our positioning across the world presents a value added approach within a risk based environment. Secondly, we are ensuring that we're broadening and deepening our partnerships across the board, with governments, with UN entities, with civil society, but also with international financial institutions, with the private sector and through an increasingly multi stakeholder approach. We see this too as critical to strategic positioning risks. Thirdly, we work to strengthen our communications and our advocacy strategies to much more increasingly secure, broad based support for UN women's mandate and positioning as the leading voice, the leading partner of choice for gender equality. Fourth, and to emphasize the points that our Deputy Executive Director in Niradzagumanjvanda just mentioned, we work through the UN system to address strategic positioning risks through our work on the UN SWAP as well as the Gender Equality Acceleration Plan, leveraging our coordination mandate to ensure that we are placing gender equality and women's empowerment at the heart of system wide reform. And finally, for strategic positioning we seek to improve operational efficiencies and country level impact impacts also through the pivot to countries and regions to ensure that we are increasingly close and of close proximity to partners to generate not only cost savings but to ensure that we're driving meaningful impact on the ground. Thank you so much. Belgium · Vice President (Chair) · Sophie de Smith [1:43:27]: Thank you very much Mrs. Deputy Executive Director and Mrs. Directors for your combined responses. If there are no further comments or statements, we can conclude our discussion on this item. Dear colleagues, we have reached the end of the morning session and I would suggest we suspend here. I am sure delegates will take advantage of this early break to have lunch, but also to resume their informal consultations on the draft decisions. I hereby really want to thank all delegations for their flexibility and for showing the spirit of compromise that they have already demonstrated over the past days. So please, when you enter that negotiation room, hold on to that spirit, spirit of flexibility. And really, I count on you showing your talents for bridge building and also for consensus building. So before you go, maybe just one more minute of your time to allow the secretary to give some quick reminders. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. And I don't want to be between you and the lunch, so I'll be very fast. UN Women · Secretary [1:44:55]: Since it's 11:30, I would suggest that we resume at 12 the negotiation in conference room C. So that will give us half an hour to relax, and then we end it, and then we meet at 12. So that's significantly more time to negotiate since we have still two decisions open. Thank you very much, Madam Chair. Belgium · Vice President (Chair) · Sophie de Smith [1:45:24]: Thank you very much. We are nearly there, so please enjoy your lunch, enjoy your break, and then we see you at 2 in conference room C. So the first plenary meeting of the session is hereby adjourned. And we see you at 3 for the continuation of the plenary session. Thank you very much.