The UN80 Process, the repositioning of the UN Development System and DG17: strengthening Stakeholder Engagement (2026 ECOSOC Partnership Forum Side Event)

Hello and good afternoon to everyone and welcome to this event. My name is Ana Jimenez. I'm the DPR of Spain. And it's my distinct pleasure to offer some brief introductory words for this event because obviously the program is the most important part of our session today, and we had great experts and great voices that we will hear later. So, from my side, I just want to thank very much all our partners here, Belgium, Canada, Australia, the Center on International Cooperation at nyu, and also a very warm welcome to all of us, of all of you who are following us via UN Web tv.

From my side, I think that the main purpose of this meeting is actually to look at all the synergies between different processes that are going on right now in the UN in international context, relating to the UN 80 initiative, the repositioning of the UN Development System and SDG 16, which is kind of the glue that keeps everything together through the cohesive nature of this sdg. At least from my side, it's always very important to look at the context of all these reforms together, because sometimes as Member states, or at least in my opinion, it's a little bit difficult to follow. To follow, like all the different initiatives that are taking place in the different streams of UNHC and then the repositioning of the UN system, et cetera, and just to have this opportunity to discuss with the experts about these issues, I think is going to be extremely valuable. Already yesterday we had a meeting Member states with the DSG on Work Scheme 3 of the UN80 reform. And we had an opportunity to discuss the IRC system and receive very interesting information about the work that already is being done.

So

from our side, from space, also to highlight that for US partnership, which we value very much in our relations with the UN and with all different actors, is not only about who is at the table, but also about how decisions are made, how voices are heard, and whether engagement is really meaningful, inclusive and accountable. And I hope we'll also have the opportunity to discuss these issues here. So just my final word is a word of appreciation of, of gratitude to everyone who accepted to be part of this meeting. And without any further ado, I will give the floor to the moderator of the first session so we can start our work. Thank you so much.

Thank you very much, Ambassador. And thank you so much to all of the colleagues that have joined us in the room today. It's wonderful to see so many and representing member states, civil society organizations, of course, the UN system as well. So we really appreciate everybody coming along for a discussion on such an important Topic Obviously at the moment we know that the catchphrase is un 80. Everybody is really focused on reforms, but of course in the development system we have the UN development system reforms that have been there for a while now and we don't want to lose sight of the importance.

So I have the great pleasure. Pleasure to moderate panel one. My name is Shona McKenna. I'm the councillor for Development and Humanitarian affairs at the Australian Permanent Mission. So session one is focusing on the future of multilateralism.

That's something that we're all giving a lot of thought to at the moment, but in particular about how UN80 and how UN development system reform will shape the next generation of development cooperation. So we have three or possibly four speakers, depending on whether our fourth speaker can make it. And so we've asked each of them to focus in on a key topic that really reflects their area of expertise. They'll probably speak for about five minutes each and then I'll open it up to some questions. So I really encourage you to listen and think about what it is that you'd really like to dig into during this session today.

So without further ado, I'd like to hand over to our first speaker, Rosemary Kalapurakal, who is the Deputy Director of the Development Coordination Office. And thank you very much, Rosemary, over to you.

Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen. All protocols observed. Let me begin by thanking the co organizers of this event for bringing us together and for the opportunity to share some reflections and be part of this discussion today.

As we gather for the ECOSOC Partnership Forum, we are reminded that partnerships, when grounded in national priorities and effectively coordinated, are probably among the most powerful tools we have to accelerate the Sustainable Development Goals. And nowhere is this more evident than in the area of SDG financing, which is what I want to focus on today. At the country level, this is no revelation to you. Governments are confronting intersecting crises, constrained fiscal space, rising debt burdens and the urgent need for large scale investments to drive recovery, resilience as well as long term sustainable development. Of course, partnerships exist everywhere, but they don't always add up, do they?

Too often financing efforts remain fragmented short term or misaligned with national priorities. That's why I want to focus now on how the UN development system at the country level, under the leadership of so called resident coordinators, can help governments translate national commitments into country owned financing solutions that mobilized the scale of investment required. And for those of you who might be unfamiliar with the RC system, that coordination infrastructure was set in place during the first wave of reforms. That Shona just referred to last year's Sevilla commitment underscored that closing the STG financing gap, now above some $4 trillion annually, demands a publicly led, privately powered investment push. But as we know, global ambition means very little unless it finds traction on the ground.

Resident coordinators are uniquely positioned to make this possible. As the senior most UN development representative in each country and as leaders of UN country teams, they convene governments, donors, UN agencies, international financing institutions, civil society and the private sector around a coherent national financing agenda. Allow me to highlight a few key areas where RC led partnerships are already delivering results and these are areas where you should expect and demand more of us through the continuation of reforms, including through UN 81st countries need a clear roadmap to finance their national priorities. The so called integrated national financing Frameworks offer exactly that helping governments cost their SDG targets, identifying gaps and align public and private financing through the Joint SDG Fund and you'll hear more from Lisa shortly. RCS are supporting more than 80 countries develop or strengthen their financing frameworks, mobilizing system wide expertise and elevating financing discussions to the highest levels of government.

Second, Resident Coordinators are helping countries unlock innovative financing at scale. We have seen how this has helped Cabo Verde issue its first blue bonds, North Macedonia launch a blended green finance facility, Uruguay expanding its renewable energy investment platforms and Indonesia issuing more than 1.6 billion in green sukuk and SDG linked bonds. But let me reassure you, these are not isolated efforts. These are not just anecdotes. They reflect a growing ability of the UN development system to bring investors, IFIS and national authorities together behind coherent financing strategies.

In Thailand, RC leadership through the UN Global Compact helped catalyze a 46 billion private sector commitment to climate and nature goals. And across the regions we see system wide collaboration with the IFIs growing rapidly. Did you know that in 2024, 73% of all UN country teams had coordinated initiatives with the World Bank, IMF regional development banks and others. Third, RCs are supporting governments in negotiations and policy reforms that directly affect financing flows. In Mozambique, UN economists supported IMF program discussions.

In Egypt, the RC coordinated UN engagement around World bank development policy financing. And in Papua New Guinea, UN analysis was instrumental in the World Bank's decision to provide additional financing. These are less visible achievements of course, but they are among the most consequential for countries long term fiscal and development trajectories. Finally, the UN is helping governments tackle systematic financing challenges and for the first time as rcs, one of the first messages that they get is please engage on helping countries address debt vulnerabilities through debt swap initiatives, strengthening domestic resource mobilization, aligning national budgets with the SDGs and improving transparency to curb illicit financial flows. RCs are also supporting countries engagement with the Sevilla Platform for Action and the Sevilla Forum on Debt Critical at a moment when many countries face rising debt costs and climate shocks simultaneously.

All of this work depends on timely access to technical expertise and capital and catalytic capital. As UNAT also emphasizes, mechanisms such as the Joint SDG Fund and the UN Capital Development Fund remain indispensable, especially for least developed countries and sids. These instruments quite simply are the bridge between ambition and implementation. Colleagues Advancing SDG financing is ultimately about partnerships to deliver for people. The UN Development System, through its Resident Coordinators and country teams, represents an infrastructure that member States have invested in to support nationally led development pathways.

Please continue to see us as your neutral platform to convene coalitions of partners, public and private that can help translate your priorities into coordinated large scale financing solutions. I thank you.

Wonderful. Thank you very much. Rosemary, I think it's excellent to hear the emphasis that you've placed on the Resident Coordinator System. I think we've heard from different Resident Coordinators, including late last year when they all came here to New York, and there are so many good examples of that system working in different countries. I hope to hear from you all later when we have our Q and A session about your experience of the Resident Coordinator System and of course its impact on supporting nationally led financing for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals.

Turning to our second speaker, it's Lisa Kirbyel, Head of the Secretariat at the Joint SDG Fund. So Lisa, I think we are very interested to hear from your perspective on this topic. So over to you.

Thanks Shona, thank you so much. And colleagues in the room, all protocols observed.

Delighted to be here, honored to represent the Joint SDG Fund. Begin with of course, important words of thanks to Spain, to Belgium, Canada, Australia, the Center on International Cooperation of NYU, for convening this. And begin with special thanks to the Government of Spain, Ambassador Ana Jimenez de la Hos, for the leadership that Spain has demonstrated. That's 140 million euros, colleagues, not only to initiate this fund, but to keep it really active and moving. And also Ambassador De Wolf representing the Government of Belgium for the support to the Global Accelerator window, which is another piece of our work for accelerating social protection and jobs around the world.

Rosemary's given us a perfect opening to the realities that we face. The tight fiscal space, the declining oda, the rising pressure on countries to deliver across the multiple SDGs that we all committed to as an international community. And we're not short of strategies, and we're not short of commitments, and we're not short of speeches, including the one I'm delivering. But how do we turn that into delivery? And it really is about partnerships.

Rosemary mentioned how many of our resident coordinators every day are engaging with, of course, their host government through which we serve. But that UN system, those international finance institutions, the DFIs and other partners, including the private sector, they're a convening and they're a broker, and they're a neutral partner that brings together the parties to really make sure that we're indeed publicly led, but privately financed, because there'll never be enough ODA to get this done. So what does the Joint SDD Fund do in practice? How can I give you a few examples? And if you think about catalytic support, we are not ever meant to be a dfi, an mdb, an ifi.

We're meant to bring catalytic support. We're meant to unlock one of the many hurdles that might be presented to getting an investment off the ground. And we bring coherence and we bring speed and flexibility. And that's in a world that is increasingly fragmented, as we know, by earmarked resources, which is a huge conversation in the UN80 context. Right, right.

How do you get best in class from the UN development system at the country level? And I want to speak a little bit about what de risking means from the point of view of a government. And I had this amazing call today with the UN country team in Montevideo in Uruguay, and the Bank Satander, which happens to be headquartered in Madrid, about what is it? What was the special ingredient that the UN brought? And in fact, it was the local context, and it was also the application of the Uruguayan tax code that enabled a multinational bank to unlock green finance facilities from Madrid in Uruguay to enable Uruguay to continue on its journey for a green energy transition.

That's e buses, that's e vehicles, but it's eventually going to be green hydrogen. With a recent $20 million loan from the IFC, this is how the UN painstakingly is building Lego block by Lego block the policy, regulatory and investment environment to really unlock value for money and achieve those SDGs. The fund, your humble joint SDG fund, with its 400 million in capitalization, has mobilized 6.6 billion in SDG aligned financing. And that number comes from every single one of the projects that we have in over 130 countries that makes partnerships actionable. And helps unlock financing, often through bonds, often through sukuks.

Rosemary gave a few examples and I'd like to just dive into a few so that you can sort of try to piece together how we work and what leverage really means. Because leverage is the name of the game. As ODA goes down, we need to stretch every euro, every dollar even further. So the green financing facility in North Macedonia trying to get low income families, vulnerable families, onto that solar grid that often is reserved for those who can afford the panels onto their roofs, right? Not every family can afford to invest and take the long term repayment scheme that are available from some of those private solar installers.

So we worked through a green financing facility with the EBRD European bank for Reconstruction and Development to de risk the loans that could enable the local banks to make a more reasonable loan to those vulnerable families. More solar panels on roofs, less smog and pollution, lower asthma for the kids, right? Skopje sits in a valley, the clouds come in, everyone's breathing in that smog. How do we lift that? How do we actually change it so that it gets all the way down to the clinic where the 5 year old can't breathe and doesn't have an inhaler.

So that's the way 57 small and medium enterprises were enabled to raise that ability for renewable energy to be used, avoiding 4,100 tons of CO2 annually. Right? Getting to that global footprint of greening all of our countries around the world and how this can be a replica model that we can take from EBRD beyond. The great news of phase two is that another $11 million of EBRD financing came on top of that initial project. So when you build it right with the right partners, the joint fund steps back.

We don't have a role anymore because now EBRD and the financing and the de risking can continue to roll. We want to work ourselves out of a job. In each of these transactions. We de risk, we catalyze and then we get out of the way and ideally the bankers take it forward. Zimbabwe is an exciting one because of the political sensitivities around the sanctions there and a lack of ODA going into the country.

Right? That doesn't mean the needs are any less, it doesn't mean the vulnerabilities are any mitigated because of that. In fact, sometimes they're accelerated. We built a renewable energy fund that was under the legislation of Zimbabwe to build a blended finance facility with a South African bank called Old Mutual. We're targeting 100 million, we're at about 30 million now.

But what's exciting is that this is an example of the bread and butter of the un. Many, many folks in this building and across the agency's funds and programs work in the policy realm. How do you make the policy enable the investments to unlock the resources? In the case of Zimbabwe, it was by looking at the types of assets that can be investable by pension funds and other banks. It's called the prescribed asset class.

And when you get that magical label on your asset, let's say a solar panel on the roof of a hospital, now you unlock the opportunity for other banks to get a credit for investing in that asset class because it's green as well as the pension funds of the country. So we, the un, working through the UN development system under that resident coordinator with the parliamentarians and the members of the cabinet, were able to advocate for an adjustment to that legislation, which will now unlock more money into the very solar panels that we help de risk. That's the way that you can see both sides. It's the policy piece, but it's also that catalytic investments, working with those bankers, that getting through investment committees, helping small and medium enterprises learn excel and get up to speed so that they can meet the investors and be ready for that. I'm going to give you one last one.

I mentioned Uruguay already very exciting with that IFC loan. Really, really moving Uruguay into the realm of green hydrogen, which I really do believe is going to be the future for so many of us. Right? How are we going to be fueling our airplanes, our cars, etc. How did we mobilize that initial money?

It was through the generosity of our member states. But how does it get taken forward by Satander and by the tax code of Uruguay? So again, we don't have to stay on that journey anymore because we ceded it, we were catalytic and now it goes forward. Another example of how even small money can make a difference in Honduras, $250,000. To look at how national municipal authorities could redesign education.

We had a lot of kids not going to school. School. The data on the limited enrollment of 5, 6 and 7 year olds was really startling. And there was a planning and budgeting and accountability system put in place that started to inspire municipalities to compete with one another to get the award for how many kids they enrolled in school. And next thing you know, it's a race to the top.

Just a little bit of catalytic money, some creative marketing and and some really committed people that are working at those local municipal levels that were invisible to doing good work. You shine a light on that. Great work and all of a sudden now we're getting budgets from local municipalities, investing more into education, because we made the case that was already there and we helped roll it. So now tens of thousands of children demonstrating how catalytic financing can really be embedded in public finance systems. Right?

So I mentioned the private examples where we're giving it to the bankers, but it's also in those local governments, it's in those mayor's offices, it's in those local councils. So, colleagues, the Joint SDG Fund is really here to beseech you to advocate for our survival. We are up against strong headwinds and the Joint SDG Fund wants to represent the UN development system through those resident coordinators as best as it can. But we need strong, strong partnerships and. And we need replenishment.

Our finances are not guaranteed. They're built on the trust of the member states that have put us here this far. But it needs to be accelerated. If anyone here has an idea for a new partnership, inside or outside, public or private, I'm here afterwards and we're really thrilled to be here. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Lisa. So if you've got any ideas, Lisa wants to hear them. So let's remember that when we come to our interactive session. Also, I think we time and time again talk about the need to bring in the private sector. We're not going to be able to achieve development without it.

And I think Lisa's just outlined some very concrete examples that we can all learn from. So, turning now to our third speaker, Andrea Cook, who is the Executive Director, UNSDG System Wide Event Evaluation Office. I'm sure you have a very busy agenda, so thank you, Andrea. Very delighted to hear from you today. Thanks.

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, I thank the CO organisers for bringing us together today for this discussion at the start of what's going to be a very critical year for the United Nations. I'm pleased to speak from the perspective of the Independent System Wide Evaluation Office on the importance of enhancing the role of evaluation in step with the UN 80 process. Our office was established by the Secretary General in response to requests by Member States dating back to 2010. They were asking him or the previous Secretary General to put in place a mechanism to provide accountability, transparency and learning across the UN development system, and why Member States have long been concerned about fragmentation, which remains the central obstacle to multilateral effectiveness.

Despite the current round of reforms set out by the Secretary General in his report on repositioning of the development system in 2018, his report included establishment of a system wide evaluation office to to provide the independent oversight and learning on the efforts to make the UN development system more strategic, accountable, collaborative and responsive to national development needs and priorities. Our 2025 evaluation of these reforms in relation to programming alignment and configuration of UN country teams, which is central to UN 80 work packages 5 and 6, reveals limited system wide progress in addressing this fragmentation by UN entities across capacities, funding efficiency, mandates and collaboration. Recent analysis by Mopan finds that overlapping mandates, blurred functions, duplicative country footprints and weak coordination mechanisms have created a fragmented system that that increases costs, dilutes impact and undermines coherence. Despite the progress that we hear from Rosemary and Lisa and this limits the replication and scale up of greater efficiency and results. In many ways, today's fiscal crisis is exposing these structural challenges.

Form follows function and it's therefore not surprising to see these challenges reflected across UN evaluation functions. The United Nations Evaluation Group counts over 50 member agencies, many of which are small and under capacitated evaluation officers, and despite the commitments in the funding compact, the number of joint evaluations commissioned by the same system is relatively low. One of the first undertakings of our office in 2024 was to map UN evaluations in response to requests of the General assembly to find a way to marshal evidence to support the 2024 Quadrennial Comprehensive Policy Review. This office is designed to play a key role in strengthening the use and learning from existing UN evaluation evidence and for example, in that year we produced evidence maps which mapped cross UN evaluation evidence at country level for the first time. We also produced user friendly evidence summaries on issues critical for UN80, including the resident coordinator system, regional reforms, delivery in complex settings and funding.

This work revealed surprisingly that approximately 1,000 evaluation reports are being published across the UN system annually, providing an extensive but fragmented evidence base. We also found that only one quarter of these evaluations are strategic, thematic or policy focused, the majority of project evaluations following earmarked funding patterns. Findings again from a recent survey by Mopan reveal the impact of recent budget cuts on evaluation and knowledge capabilities across the un and this shows serious implications for the evidence base on which transparency, accountability and improvement of reform efforts depends on these findings raise significant concerns for us. Clearly, independent evaluation coverage does need to be maintained, but evaluation functions also need to adapt in line with member state expectations to streamline accountability frameworks, strengthen joint results and collective impact measures. For example, through the qcpr, UN cooperation frameworks and pooled funding mechanisms, greater focus on joint evaluation is needed.

The commissioning, use and follow up to system wide evaluations that look at how agencies work together to achieve country outcomes is key. Building on the work of the UN System Wide Evaluation Office and IASC evaluations in the humanitarian sector coordinated by OCHA. Returning to UN 80 system wide evaluation evidence provided key inputs to the Secretary General's reports on the mandate Implementation Review, Workstream 2 and Shifting Paradigms. United to deliver Workstream 3 and I've been pleased to have the opportunity to brief UN system leaders as they take forward the resulting work packages. Looking ahead, it will be doubly important to to ensure that there is independent evidence on progress in implementing the UNHC reforms.

Our office has closely followed the work of the informal Ad Hoc working group on Workstream 2 on implementation of mandate review. And we've distilled three key asks from Member States in relation to evaluation which I'll close with. Firstly, Member States are saying that in times of institutional reform, independent analysis and learning is more, not less important, emphasising as well the critical need to strengthen system wide transparency and evidence based approaches. Secondly, Member States emphasise the need to embed evaluation mechanisms at the point of mandate design and to inform mandate review. I'd encourage Member States and others to to look at our 2025 evaluation on the progress towards a new generation of country teams as an example of system wide evaluation not only of an accountability learning mechanism for the UN system itself, but also a mandate implementation review mechanism for Member States, in this case relating to the effectiveness of a 279 and the subsequent QCPR resolutions on the development system reform.

And finally, Member States emphasized that ensuring adequate resources and capacities evaluation was key. Only by ensuring predictable and sustainable financing will this evaluation Office, which is the newest part of the evaluation and oversight architecture of the United nations, will we be able to realize our full potential in strengthening system wide incentives and accountabilities for collective results. Thank you.

Thank you very much Andrea. And thank you for reminding us if we needed reminding of the importance of evidence, strong evidence to support our interventions to support our reforms. And also that point you made towards the end that at times of reform, independent evaluation and evidence just become even more important. Such an important lesson for us not to forget. Now, very timely, we are joined by our fourth Panel member.

Thank you so much Sarah for making time. And so it's my pleasure to introduce Sarah Hendricks, who is Director of Policy Program and Intergovernmental Support at UN Women and in the context of this discussion about the future of multilateralism, how UN 80 and UN development system reform will shape the next generation of development cooperation. We'd be delighted to hear from Sarah about what she's experiencing now, and in particular what mergers mean for the future of development. Thank you.

Thank you so much, dear moderator, and indeed, thank you for the opportunity to speak today, for inviting me to this incredibly innovative and interesting and esteemed panel.

I'm sorry to have walked in slightly late. In fact, I was coming from a executive board informal on this very topic, so it's quite timely. And thank you also to the government of Spain, Belgium, Canada and Australia and the center on International Cooperation at NYU for bringing us together today in such a partnership oriented way. And thank you also to the Ambassador for opening today's discussion. I'll start by just reflecting on this pivotal moment that the UN system finds ourselves in and indeed a reflection of the world we are in.

A pivotal moment in the evolution of the UN development system. A moment that is increasingly defined by global inequalities that are expanding by, as we know, rising authoritarianism and by an urgent need for systems that are not only resilient, but systems that are actually bold and courageous and coherent, and systems that are very people centered and people centric. So in the face of this, the UN is seeking to adapt very much to a world that is in flux. And we all know that quite well. The SG has called for a UN that is less fragmented, that is more results driven, that is more accountable to the people that it serves.

And a vision certainly that is echoed across the entirety of the UN 80 reform process. This is not the first time that we have seen this drive for coherence, for addressing fragmentation. And at the risk of going backwards in history rather than forwards, allow me just to remind ourselves collectively that at UN Women we were in fact born from this very call. A call which out of decades of advocacy jointly by member states and by civil society, demanded more from the UN when it came to delivering on gender equality. And many of you know that genesis story very well.

So before UN Women, there were four separate entities that were working on different pieces of gender issues and each played an absolutely vital role. But fragmentation diluted impact with the 2006. Now this is really going back in history. High Level Panel on System Wide Coherence and with, and let me reinforce this again, with very strong backing from civil society and women's rights organizations and advocates globally, UN Women was created in 2010 with a strong partnership in the voice and backing of member states to bring more coherence, but also more visibility as well as just frankly, more power to the whole UN system's. Gender equality mandate.

Overall, I wasn't there at that time, but I've spoken to lots of people who were and everyone says it was the best thing to have happened. But it also wasn't easy. And mergers never are easy. In fact, it required political will, it required sustained civil society pressure. It required careful, careful design to protect mandates and preserve hard won gains.

But it also proved through doing so that institutional reform, when done really with purpose and when done with principles at its heart, can be in fact a catalyst for transformative change. And so, as we reflect in this part of today's dynamic session on potential future mergers and their meaning for development, such as the one between UN women and unfpa, I think we need to carry forward those lessons that to harness those lessons that aren't that old and ask ourselves some important questions and how we can address them. First, that reform must not weaken mandates, but in fact must strengthen them. Second, that consolidation must not erase identity, but actually amplify impact. And third, that civil society must not just be an observer, but actually a co architect alongside all of you as member states.

In the future that gets built together if approached strategically, transparently and certainly with an unwavering commitment and focus on delivering for those we serve. We think that mergers can actually be a conduit towards greater impact and towards greater coherence. And it's all about what is the problem you're trying to solve? Do mergers drive greater efficiencies? Yes, but I think the more important question is do they drive greater impact programmatically and policy wise in the lives of women and girls and men and boys the world over?

But allow me to say we must be clear eyed about this. Mergers are not without risk. They carry significant, at times political risks, operational risks, and indeed the very risk of disrupting delivery at a time when it's most urgently needed. These risks need to be addressed seriously. They need to be looked at from all angles.

They need to be assessed in full, and they need to be addressed proactively as well. We cannot afford delay or loss of momentum, especially when progress on gender equality, women's rights, women's sexual and reproductive health and rights has already been under threat in so many parts of the year, of the world for so many years. We also, I would argue, cannot afford complacency. I think we cannot assume that the status quo, whether in organizational arrangements or institutional structures, is sufficient for the scale of challenges before us. And this is probably the most important thing I say, whilst it doesn't sound very important, I think it's imperative that we look at what the future likely is to hold in terms of the status of women and girls around the world, as well as the ascending threats of increased backlash and fiscal dilution in order to understand and really grapple with Is the current status quo sufficient enough to grapple with that future from where we sit at UN Women and allow me just to close with I think some reflections on the current assessment process regarding a potential, and I'll say potential and underline that five times or possible merger between UN women and UNFPA from where we sit.

This is a natural extension of the broader UN development system reform and specifically the reform that created UN Women. It's an opportunity to ask some bold but very necessary questions. And here the questions are more oriented around the space of gender equality. So is the UN right now and in its future fit for purpose in meeting the needs as well as the rights and priorities of women and girls in all their diversity? Second, are there more effective, more impactful ways of organizing ourselves to serve better, to serve faster, to make a difference?

And finally, can a consolidated entity provide more comprehensive agile on time support to Member States at country level, really offering a full range of end to end services for women and girls, from normative policy change all the way down through the value chain of delivery of services on the ground? To help answer those questions and at the request of the Secretary General, an external assessment is underway. Many of you know about that already. It's underway to evaluate the potential benefits, but also to look at the potential risks of a merger between UNFPA and UN women and of their respective mandates, really towards the creation of and now I'm quoting from the Secretary General's report, creating a unified voice and platform on gender equality and women's rights, unquote. This process is being conducted in close consultation with the UN system and its findings will be and are being presented to you Member States for your consideration for your deliberation for Member States to take forward as you will.

In fact, as I mentioned, I just came from an informal now with UN Women's example Executive Board and a similar one will be held today with UNFPA's executive board. It is being driven by a shared ambition to deliver greater momentum and greater impact of results for women and girls and young people everywhere. I think what is clear, regardless of what this merger assessment comes out to say in terms of its feasibility analysis, its cost benefit analysis, its risk and benefit analysis, there are many, many analyses. What is clear is that we must meet the urgency of this moment and indeed of the future that is upon us, we can't afford to stand still. And that phrase we cannot afford to stand still is a reflection of what we often say in the space of normative outcomes on gender equality is that we are running at this moment just to stand still.

We are running just to hold ground on gender equality and women's rights across the world. At a time when the multilateral system is being tested, we also feel we cannot afford business as usual. So we hope that we can be prepared as all partners, civil society member states, the UN system, to really ask difficult questions, to examine things from all lenses, to be bold with decisions, and to ensure that the architecture of the UN is as courageous and ambitious as the values it was built to defend. With that. Thank you so much,

Sarah. Thank you so much. That was excellent. And I'm really pleased that you were able to make it to this session. Thank you very much for joining us and for sharing those insights.

Three quick things I took away was your points around reform. It must be one, strengthen mandates, two, amplify impact and three, have civil society as a co architect. Really important things for us to remember. Now, we don't have a lot of time, but I want to throw it open very quickly for any burning questions or thoughts or ideas that you may have. So I'm opening the floor and I think a show of hands is great, or you can press your microphone button, but that person down there had their hand up straight away.

So. So I'm going to go to you first. Thanks.

Thank you very much. If you could introduce yourself please as well. This is Betty Levy, I represent fema, Argentinian Women's Rights Organization, and I am the advisor to the NGO CSW Latin America and Caribbean. And my question is directed to Sarah. And you know, also, Shawna, you just mentioned the role of civil society again as one of your takeaways.

But yet in the last few sentences that Sarah, you brought forward, you didn't mention civil society having any consultations, any opportunity to see the assessment, to meet with people. I know it's taken. It's been more than nine months. We've had two.

We had the UN Women UNFPA meeting last week and the week before the Guy Ryder meeting. But other than that, there's been no direct interface with civil society. So yet you mentioned that as so important. So I'd like to know what are the steps for civil society? Thank you so much.

Great question. I'll take that and I'll take another question and then we'll go back to the panel for a quick response. So there's somebody with a green microphone on just here. Thank you. My question is also for Sarah and following up on the former question in terms of recognizing older women in the

agreed conclusions and I understand the need to encompass all women, but when you then continue to reference youth without recognizing the other end of the age spectrum, it doesn't give us long term confidence

of our concerns that older women, which are a growing population and need to be heard from. So sort of piggybacking on the previous. Thank you.

Terrific.

Thank you. And I'm wondering if our third question might be directed perhaps to one of our other panels panel members. Thank you.

I think the vulnerable populations mostly fall through the cracks, whether that's older or the youth. And how is that being assessed as to whether these populations are going to suffer in a merger or whether these fragmentations are having a negative impact on these populations?

Terrific. Thank you so much for asking those questions. Sarah, delighted that you could make it because it seems like everyone has questions for you.

So I'm sorry to say that just given that we want to get onto our second panel, I'm just going to give you a minute or so to respond.

I'll try to be very efficient. And thank you so much for the dynamism of your questions. Indeed, they're so important. And to the first speaker from Argentina, I think it was.

Yes, indeed. If I can just speak more specifically at this point about this particular merger assessment, just to reinforce that right now there is no merger assessment report, but rather a structured process to gather and analyze data, to undertake interviews, to engage in consultations, and to utilize what's called a hypothesis driven approach, looking at the risks and also the benefits of any potential merger. Civil society engagement is part of the planned consultations. And so the engagement session that took place last week is an exemplar of that. And this explicitly includes women's rights and women led organizations, sexual and reproductive health and rights groups, as well as relevant foundations.

Recognizing really the diversity and the diverse constituencies in advancing gender equality, women's rights and srhr, and how those are integral to gender equality overall and to broader population dynamics for UN women. We've also put together a civil society engagement strategy and a set of monthly meetings with key civil society, including young women and girl led networks and alliances are being advanced to really strengthen perspectives on a cohesive gender architecture. There's also a regular set of civil society meetings in each region with regional and liaison offices that will be held. We see CSW as an important moment to reinforce and amplify the opportunity for dialogue. So please be assured of that.

On the second question and noting the imperative of time, allow me to say that the vision, if there were a united entity, the vision that has been put out is one that looks at the full life course all the way from adolescent girls to older women and is very intentional with that vision. And I'm also delighted to say that at CSW 70 this year, the full focus for the ministerial dialogue and the new issue is actually indeed on older women with the intent to really integrate this effectively through the normative space as well. Thank you so much. Thank you. I'm sorry we don't have much time for more questions.

Maybe there will be more time at the end, but for now if you could join me in thanking our panel number one. Thank you so much. And we will vacate and allow panel number two to join you here. Thanks it.

Okay. Good afternoon esteemed colleagues. Thank you so much for being here. In the interest of time, we're going to move straight to session two, strengthening stakeholder engagement in the UNAD process with reflections here from the field in hq. Lessons learned from previous reform efforts and their impact.

My name is Margaret Williams and I work for the center on International Cooperation at New York University. We are delighted to be co organizers of this event and are very grateful for the permanent missions of Spain, Canada, Belgium and Australia for bringing us here today to discuss this very critical topic at a pivotal moment. Given the short amount of time that we have and how substantive all of our speakers are, I would like to quickly turn to our first speaker and I know throughout the session people will be picking up on many of the themes raised earlier in Session one. So with that, it is my honor and privilege to turn to our first speaker to kick us off. Ann Marie Hu, Executive Director of the UN Office for Partnerships Anne Marie, thank you.

Thank you so much, Margaret. And thank you for that first group of speakers who just really have set the scene and I'll set it a bit further about what partner engagement can really look like at the United nations as we go forward for the development challenges that we face right now. We all agree it takes a whole of society society approach to take solutions to scale. But as a member state driven ecosystem, if you're not a member state, it can be difficult to figure out how you fit in as a gateway to the un. We're believers in putting our trust into building relationships and into co creation and using our convening powers for God.

We are transparent that we are not maybe the easiest system to understand or to work with. But we have also gotten pretty good at being matchmakers and we really try not to rely on anything that is transactional, short term and really thought of as a procurement model. I'm going to share a couple of examples especially after hearing the UN 80 briefing yesterday from SG Doreen Bogdan of the ITU. She spoke so eloquently about the value add that the UN brings to partners. And you heard such good examples from the previous panel coming out of COVID The SG had a social Economic response plan.

Building on that plan we co created a research roadmap with the Canadian Institutes of Health Research to go to research funders around the world. It's a very niche group of partners. The DSG convened 50 plus research institutes who agreed to use the roadmap for their immediate research funding. The Wellcome Trust then was able to show that we had leveraged more than $800 million to low and middle income countries in new research dollars. The UN brought value added cohesion.

We convened for good, we co created a roadmap and we developed trust and a relationship with the new network of research institutes that has now been going on for more than five years. And one of the other really cool things that came out of it was a much stronger emphasis on women led research teams. The second example is how we need to use our platform to promote what is possible. We approached Microsoft Vice Chair and President Brad Smith to become one of the Secretary General's SDG advocates in 2021. Since then we've really deepened the engagement with Microsoft on thought leadership, including investments in innovation for the SG's early warning systems and the work on the SG's high high level advisory body on AI.

And they've consistently advocated for the SDGs and last week announced a four pronged package to support the UN including a UN ad innovation fund, affordable pricing for products that the UN uses and AI training and readiness for staff. And one we're really excited about is private sector talking to other private sector and mobilizing them in support of the United Nations. And the last example is these kinds of conversations. I can see a lot of interest. The questions have been deep, People are following along.

We think the value of dialogue is so important and we have created Goals Lounge which is a initiative to be able to have these kind of conversations in a non script scripted way to bring people, sometimes partners from outside who don't know very much about the UN and the same way to bring the UN to outside partners. And we're hoping to continue Having those interesting dialogues again, that exchange of ideas that lead to solutions that lead to scale. If we keep our eye on that longer horizon, our feet planted in the promise of the chart, we'll continue to grow engagement from private sector, academia, philanthropy, youth, as many of the communities that we've heard about today and the ones we really work with and serve. Thank you.

Thank you so much, Henry. That was so concise and thoughtful. Substantive keywords, relationship, co creation, convening for good networks, research institutes, private sector partnerships, including ON AI and the SCGS Lounge, which I can personally attest to is a phenomenal space. So with that, I'm going to turn to our second speaker, Ollie Henman with Action for Sustainable Development and co chair of the major groups and other stakeholders. Ollie, you've been involved in many reform processes and have worked with civil society at various levels for more than a decade.

But no need for additional specificity on numbers. What reflections might you offer on stakeholder engagement thus far and what would you recommend going forward, particularly as UNAD intersects with UNDS reform?

Well, thank you. Thank you very much, Maggie. Thank you to all the organizers, the government of Spain, Belgium, Canada, and to the Centre for International Cooperation.

It's great to see such a great turnout here today as well and so many member states, states interested to take forward this important topic. I want to just start by making a little caveat that my intervention was developed with no assistance from AI. This is entirely based on real feedback from real humans. So we know that the world is facing major, major challenges. But I do want to remember that the opening words of the UN Charter say we the peoples, not we the governments.

It does start with we the peoples. And we need to remember that as the UN now is looking at its next 80 years, it's essential that whatever is built at this time in terms of reforms really does bring people with it. It's a time to reflect, consider, but also time to defend multilateral action. It's a time for humanity to step up and build something together. So from the point of view of civil society groups, you may know the major groups and other stakeholders is a mechanism that was established to engage with the high level political forum.

If we learn from that particular process. Thinking back to 2015, many of us were involved in the process that led to the formation of the Sustainable development goals, the 2030 Agenda, and that was built around that dialogue with recognized constituencies. So initially going right back even to 92, you had nine so called major groups, NGOs, trade unions, businesses, local authorities, key groups, women, youth and so on. In 2015 that was expanded and that's why we now call it the major groups and other stakeholders. And over the years that's grown even further.

Now 22 different recognized constituencies that are each self organized and each are able to develop their own ideas and their own thinking. And it's really important that we do that in a self organized way. It's a powerful model that reaches out to many thousands of people because not everyone can be here physically in New York. Unfortunately, there are other situations where the UN may hand pick individual representatives, but they don't necessarily bring the breadth of knowledge and understanding from that constituency. And so harnessing that ability to gather integrated positions from membership ensures a clear follow up in thematic areas.

And we are all here and keen to work in partnership. There could be, for example, an advisory group set up with stakeholder groups on UN80 reforms, such as was done during the Summit of the Future process. And there was a CSO conference that many of us attended in Nairobi as well, which was very much structured around bringing in those different constituency voices. That could be something to consider for UNA Team. It's also worth considering even beyond that.

I'm not saying that is the only way to engage. There are other ways. And I think nowadays with technology, we need to look at massive online consultations as well. Again, in 2015 there was a process called the World We Want that was led by the SDG Action Campaign with the within UNDP and they were able to open up an online consultation with many thousands of inputs, something like that could be done. Again, the technology now is further advanced than it was in 2015, so there's no reason why we couldn't harness that technology for good and analyze those results.

It's also important, I think, to look at each level of UN programming. And it was great to hear earlier from the UN program resident coordinator system, because I think the resident coordinators can play a key role in convening at the national level and building dialogues with civil society at the national level. And that could be an ongoing dialogue that can shape future of UN development programming. And finally, if we think about what the UN might look like that emerges from UN80. So looking beyond UN80, it's important that it shouldn't just be about consultation.

What we would ideally like to see is, is a UN development system that is built around co design, co delivery of programs, because many local communities are the ones that know best what is needed within their area. Community led development, as you know, is something that is now very well understood and local residents can work together with the UN rather than being delivered to the un. And so it's really that co creation that we want to see embedded in the future of the UN development system. So thank you very much and look forward to further conversations. Thank you so much.

Ali. So many, so many rich points. But quickly a focus on integrated positions and partnerships and also a few specific recommendations, including an advisory group to engage different stakeholder, different stakeholders in the unity process. Learning from processes like the world. We want RC dialogues at national level with civil society and to really see this as not just consultation, but co design and co delivery with local communities being the ones that know best.

So with that, that is a useful pivot to our next speaker, Stephanie Hansch, who will speak to the topic of UN 80 and multilateralism. Living the reform continuum from the ground up. Stephanie, you have a plethora of experience. What insights could you offer from these experiences in going forward? And in what ways do new realities impact how reform might be felt, interacted with at the national level?

Stephanie, thank you. Thank you very much. Can you hear me okay? Excuse me. I haven't been in a forum like this for about 10 years.

I used to work at UNICEF and UNDP across the street and I used to regularly engage, including on the 20 post2015. I was a CO moderator of Education for Sustainable Development, bringing in global stakeholders. Your question is a big question and I'll answer it from my lived experience rather than reform theory or kind of like, okay, well what, what is it that I have best offer? This is my experience. I started working with the UN in 1994 as a JPO.

I've been through multiple UN reform cycles, starting with the initiatives that are building on each other. And so I see this as the continuing of what has been started years ago at Harvard, where I got a Master's in Public Administration. They tell us that you enter into policy moments. This is a policy moment to continue what we started, qcpr. Then it was the, like you say, the resident Coordinators system.

And now here we are, the UN reform UN 80. So really this is the continuation. My first insight is that the UN has not lacked reform. What it struggled with is finishing the reform before the next one arrives. Each reform has improved coordination and coherence, but many stop this short of moving authority, resources and decisions space.

I am a program evaluator, so I'll be speaking to you about five examples of how this actually hits the ground at the point of delivery this morning. Earlier we heard about all the wonderful initiatives that really do speak to what I'm speaking to the RC system, the SDG fund, it's a catalytic fund. I mean all these things are to tools that enable the needs on the ground to be met. And so I'm going to look at what some of the bottlenecks are from lived experience examples that I have evaluated. I'll give you one, Disaster risk reduction under Hyogo and Sendai.

I looked at the midterm evaluation of Sendai in Vietnam and I've evaluated Sendai and HIOGO in many, many different countries countries through the RC system. The RC system is in place, we have a midterm evaluation and what you see is coordination. But the problem is in practice, the constraint for actually getting change from HIOGO or from Sendai comes down to risk reduction activity on the ground. It cuts climate planning, infrastructure, environment, health, social protection. But the authority, the budgets and the incentives stay vertical or organized by sector across the different agencies as well as the governments.

So you can see the complexity. So this is complexity. So really the UN country teams are expected to act in integrated ways while financing accountability still have silos. So this is number one lessons. I think we all know this.

The insight is the not a coordination failure. It's about shared responsibility without shared decision space. Nobody in charge, Nobody's in charge. If the dinner fails. That's the issue.

So we're looking at what coordination is like in practice. Two, Yesterday I listened to the UN Secretariat discussion about the amount of money that's going into countries. 58 billion. Most of that money from my perspective is going into projects. And so project architecture is extremely important when we look at coordination lessons and also results and monitoring.

So across large multi country programs, including a lot that have funded a lot of the work. Before the sdg there was the gef. The GEF is still there as a major funder. It's a catalytic fund. I evaluate a lot of GEF funding.

I think Jeff is excellent, as I do with the SDG fund. The issue is early implementation almost always surface practical constraints. But then the program needs to adapt, it needs learning. You need to build in early adaptive management. And so this is about a principle.

The principle in putting place catalytic funding is about having adaptive management and really, really building that in and allowing for change in early implementation. It goes back to Andrea's point about evaluation and the role of evaluation in the reform. This is absolutely critical. Andrea's discussion this morning earlier hits home to me because I'm an evaluator and I know exactly what she's saying in practice is going to allow UN reform. So without the UN, 80 needs to have a strong evaluation function linked to the RC system.

The insight is really, it's not about project quality. It was whether learning after launch could change decisions. How reform was felt nationally. In these big projects, countries are accountable for results but unable to adjust pathways once the reality becomes clear. This is over and over over on that 58 billion that's going into countries.

The Pacific presence versus capability in the Pacific. I evaluated the UN Pacific strategy. Am I ready? Okay, I'm done. Okay.

So in that I could go on and on because I have so many examples. Okay. The point is the technical where many agents are present in country and far more delivery depends on how many agencies were present in country and far more on whether technical expertise from normative agencies were available.

Really, again, it's about how that the system doesn't fail to coordinate. It's about releasing the expertise too late for prevention. Sorry. So really, it's a design issue. Get the expertise in the design of programs.

Don't bring it in later. I will stop there because I can go on and on and on. Regional platforms and small economies. I think regional solutions need regional platforms. But then is the UN country, is the UN resident coordination system going to allow for the funding to regional institutions that have the trust in those regions as opposed to doing it themselves?

Right. This is another point. And finally, community disasters. Well, if you don't allow for the community to participate in the design of that program and the decisions on those programs, that program will fail. So again, my intervention was a little bit about modalities and a little bit about how principles.

And I think in the reform process, three things. We need the decision space to be opened up. We need the principles to be embodied by those that set up the platforms. Whether it's UN women together with UNFPA or UNDP with UNOPS or platforms become there to enable the delivery on the ground. The resident coordinator system is there to enable decision, inclusive decision.

Thank you. That's it.

Thank you so much, Stephanie. I have copies of what I've written. We'll find a way to actually share all of the knowledge and experiences that everybody is sharing during this panel.

But without further ado, thank you to everybody and over to you, Brenda.

Thank you very much and good afternoon, everyone. We certainly needed more time than we do have because I still wanted to hear more from Stephanie. Thank you to the organizers for putting this together. I have been asked to share perspectives on reform in this era of disruption.

Very interesting question. And to provide some lessons from Past efforts, or should I say from past engagement for Oxfam and implications for country level delivery. Just to give my reflections a bit of a context for those of you that don't know. Oxfam has been in existence for the last 84 years. We were created in 1942, so we are older than the UN.

So Oxfam was created in Oxford and it was an initiative of ordinary people that came together to mobilize food and essential supplies to respond to civilians and victims of the Second World War. So our work, our being is anchored on solidarity. 84 years later, we're talking about a global movement of 22 independent organizations that are operating in more than 79 countries. We are now regarding ourselves as a movement that's tackling poverty, fighting inequality. I'm sure many of you have been reading or witnessing our efforts in producing inequality reports every year just to show the era of disruption that we're talking about.

And we fight injustice therein. Our work is very strongly anchored in humanitarian response, humanitarian crises that don't seem to be reducing, but rather increasing.

Our work really is anchored in, in the UN three pillars, the human rights, development, peace and security. We find our work everywhere. And in addition to the 79 country presence that we have, we also have five liaison offices that are based in New York, in Washington D.C. in Brussels, in Addis Ababa and in Geneva. Did I mention Geneva or Washington D.C. five of them. So we are the connectors of the work that the UN and many of our partners are doing from country level to sub, regional level, to continental level and to global spaces in terms of our partnership.

And I'm giving this context so that you see how much we've engaged ourselves in UN reforms. And I'll be fast, I'll be quick in terms of our engagement. Oxfam works very closely with UN agencies across crisis as well as development contexts. We work with ocha, we work with unicef, we've worked and we continue working with who? We work with unfpa, we work with UN women, we work with un, unhcr, we work with wfp, we work with FAO in various.

I'm not going to be specific, I had done that, but in the interest of time, I'm not going to tabulate, but just to give an example, we're working in DRC with these agencies. We're working in Central Africa Republic, in Burkina Faso, in Chad, in Guatemala, in El Salvador, across different continents.

That being the case, and I brought this question of what lessons have we had from UN reforms to my colleagues as I was preparing this and all my colleagues, nearly all my colleagues mentioned that we've been working with the UN and throughout our working experience we've been engaging in UN reference reform processes. The UN is forever reforming at my level, at the UN and multilateral level. Just to give an example. And I'm glad that you referred to policy moments. I think one of the things that the UN has successfully done to Oxfam and many civil society is to draw us into policy moments.

Just at my level, the past three, three, four years we've been engaging. And I'm mentioning four years because when you look at the summit of the future, the summit of the future began earlier than 2020. I would say it was a continuum of the reform that started in 2018. So the past actively, the past four years we've been engaged in the summit for the future. What Ollie mentioned, the convening, the support towards the convening of the civil society meeting in Nairobi, the various conversations that happened prior to the summit of the future, we invested so heavily in those.

We continue engaging in conversations around the humanitarian reset. We historically were very instrumental in contributing to the grant bargain at country level. My colleagues are part of all the initiatives and coordination efforts of all the reform processes that are happening with regards to the UN. 80 we must say, I think as an organization we've been very skeptical because for two reasons, the UN 80 Oxfam does agree with the fact that the UN ought to be reformed in terms of the need for us to contribute to its efficiency, inclusivity, and also to ensure that the resources are handled better than they are. But however, we've been extremely skeptical because of the timing to begin with.

You know, while we had invested so much into the summit of the future and we thought the moment needed to happen where we meaningfully talk about the implementation of all those actions and the mobilization that happened in mobilizing the civil society and ordinary people and what was supposed to be one of the most comprehensive reforms of the UN in our time, we quickly now move to the UN. 80 how do we go back and explain to our constituency and to everyone that, you know, this is contributing to the actions that haven't been implemented at all. The timing we feel, hasn't been. Well, the second reason why we've been very skeptical is essentially what we've been talking about. You know, we have had from the lessons learned, we've seen how to mystic the involvement of civil society has been how much the various reforms are happening in a way that's siloed but at the same time, overlapping and extremely confusing how much civil society is barely involved, but at the same time not even resourced to participate.

And yet civil society has to participate. So what are we recommending? I'll leave you with one recommendation. I had many recommendations written down, but let me just leave you with one recommendation. What we feel is that the ongoing reform and the many reforms that happening need to be coherent.

They lack coherent. And what exactly are we looking at? The question is, should the UN continue reforming and handling all these competing reform processes, Humanitarian development, peace and security. We haven't even concluded or achieved much with regards to the UN Security Council reform, and yet we've moved on to more and more reforms. So our recommendation really is that perhaps the un it's about time that we started talking and seriously talking about a comprehensive reform of the UN that may not necessarily be looking at improving anything, but rather going back to the drawing board and looking at the possibility of an overhaul.

And perhaps it's also about time we all considered going back to look at the possibility of a UN charter conference, a UN charter review, and evoking Article 109. Thank you very much.

Thank you so much, Brenda. And just a huge thanks to our speakers. We've been obviously way too pressed for time. We will find a way to take your recommendations and capture them, your experiences. Brenda, Stephanie, Annmarie, Ollie, thank you so much and I'm so sorry this has been so, so quick.

But we'll find a way to capture and disseminate. And with that, I'd like to ask Belgium, Mr. Bart de Wolf, to close us. And again thank everybody so much for participating in this event. Thank you.

Thank you so much. Colleagues, ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of Belgium and the co organizers, Spain, Canada, Australia and the center on International Cooperation at nyu, I first of all want to thank all speakers today for their open and for an open and concrete discussion. The questions raised, the experiences shared and the partnerships highlighted reflect the ambition of a collective commitment to a more effective and inclusive United nations development system. One clear message that I take away from today is that we're not starting from a blank page. That was very clear.

Member states have already agreed to an ambitious reform program for for the UN Development system, and implementation is well underway as we now move forward with UN80 and the Secretary General's action plan. The priority must be to consolidate what works, correct what does not, and avoid a reform fatigue that distracts from results on the ground. The reforms that Member states have already mandated provide the foundation and UN80 should deepen and operationalize them, not reopen them. Today's exchanges show the critical value of bringing together those design reforms at headquarters with those implementing them in the countries Resident coordinators, UN country teams, member states, but also civil society, academia, philanthropy and other development partners. We heard how partnerships at country level, the catalic role of the Joint SDG Function Fund and a system wide approach to an evidence based evaluation can help the UN deliver as one even amidst structural change.

Second key message, of course, is that stakeholder engagement should not be an afterthought. Reforms designed without those who are meant to benefit from them will not endure and will not be legitimate. The UN's comparative advantage is convening power. Its legitimacy, its presence across the world depends on inclusive, transparent and participatory approaches to institutional change. For that reason, we welcome the UN's commitment to strong stakeholder engagement throughout the unity process and I think we heard today some excellent suggestions on how to implement that.

Ultimately, both UN80 and UNDS reform will be judged by one measure. Can they help countries mobilize financing, manage transitions and shocks, reduce inequalities and accelerate progress towards the 2030 Agenda in this decisive decade? The ideas and experiences shared today, from strengthening the RC system and the funding compact to deepening stakeholder engagement and system wide evaluation, are valuable inputs as Member States and the UN consider next steps to continue working with all of you to ensure that the UN we celebrate at Haiti is more effective, more inclusive and more trusted by the people it serves. I thank you.