(3rd plenary meeting) UNICEF Executive Board, 2025 Annual Session

Excellencies, distinguished delegates, ladies and gentlemen, good morning. I welcome you to the 2nd day of our Annual Session of 2025. Before we begin the plenary discussion— discussions this morning, I will share a brief procedural note. Delegations are kindly reminded that their statements should remain within the agreed time limits: 3 minutes for individual delegations speaking in their national capacity and 5 minutes for delegations speaking on behalf of the United Nations regional groups or for joint statements of 2 or more member states. Microphones will start blinking to alert speakers 1 minute before the end of their allotted time, and speakers will be muted within 1 minute after their time has ended. Distinguished delegates, the first item on the agenda this morning will be Item 14, the UNICEF Office of Internal Audit and Investigations 2024 Annual Report to the Executive Board and Management Response. The report is prepared annually in accordance with the Executive Board decision 1998/99:1. 7/28 and subsequent decisions. It provides an overview of the Office, describes the key issues highlighted by its internal audit and investigations work, summarizes the organizational follow-up to the implementation of recommendations, and provides information on the disclosure of internal audit. Report during 2024. The report, which is contained in the document E/ICEF/2025/AB/L3, is accompanied by 2 addenda: one detailing the open agreed internal audit actions older than 18 months as at 31 December 2024, And another that details the cases closed after investigation and cases closed after assessment with established financial losses during 2024, document E/ICEF/2025/AB/L3 Addendum 2, and by management response, document E/ICEF/2025/AB/L3 Addendum 2. In addition, the UNICEF Audit Advisory Committee 2024 Annual Report to the Executive Board is available for information on the Executive Board website. A member of the Audit Advisory Committee is with us and will share some remarks from the Committee later on. I now invite Mr. Stefan Zimmerman, Director, Office of Internal Audit and Investigations, to present the annual report on the work of the Office of Internal Audit and Investigations. Sir, you have the floor.

Thank you, Mr. President, members of the Executive Board, colleagues. I have the pleasure of sharing with you an overview of the 2024 annual report of the Office of Internal Audit and Investigations, or OIAI, and a summary of our strategic priorities for 2025. OAI's mandate remains to provide assurance, investigative, and consulting services to UNICEF through internal audits and investigations. We operate with 63 staff posts across our 3 offices in New York, Budapest, and Nairobi. OAI was generally independent and free from management interference in determining the scope of our work, performing our duties, and communicating our results throughout 2024. We do, however, rely on management to provide OAI with the resources necessary to fulfill our mandate, and discussions around those resources, both for the remainder of this year and the next quadrennium, are ongoing. Key highlights in 2024 included an increased focus on thematic audits, an external quality assessment of our internal audit section for which we received the highest possible rating, a review that occurs every 5 years. A continued significant increase in our investigative workload, and full operationalization of a dedicated fraud team. Looking ahead, we are focusing on maximizing efficiencies in determining how to respond to resource challenges in the next quadrennium without compromising the breadth and quality of our work. I'm pleased to report that based on the scope of work undertaken in 2024, Nothing came to our attention— came to the attention of the office that would lead it to believe that UNICEF's governance, risk management, and control processes were not adequate and effective to achieve the organization's objectives. In 2024, OAI issued 10 country office audit reports and 7 thematic audits. 87% were rated in the top 2 categories of the 4-scale rating system, that we use. 27 actions— agreed actions remained open for 18 months, and that appears in one of the addendums, but management implementation efforts for these agreed actions are well underway. The chart on the left of this slide provides an overview— I'm sorry, I'm off one slide. The chart on the left of this slide provides an overview of the risk categories in country office audits The most common of which are program management and cash transfers. On the right are 7 audits on cross-cutting themes that identified issues meriting organizational responses. And of course, OAI's audit reports are generally and almost always publicly available. Turning to investigations, this past year, the investigations team managed 1,387 cases, a 52% increase compared to 2023. New cases of misconduct and wrongdoing increased by 68% this year, a 98% increase since 2022. Nonetheless, through the hard work of our team, we were able to increase case closures by 18%, but obviously that's not enough to keep pace with the growing workload. The chart on the right details the types of allegations that we receive. Allegations of fraud and financial impropriety increased by 80%, while those for sexual misconduct were up 28%. The chart on the left of this next slide illustrates the types of closures for cases closed. We issued 49 investigation reports, closed 214 cases after initial assessment, and 179 after review of third-party investigations. Financial losses to UNICEF— I'm sorry. We're up—

I'm sorry, financial—

the chart on the right— I'm sorry, next slide. I'm off by a slide. Financial losses to UNICEF were established in 47 cases, amounting to over $460,000, which I still consider to be a relatively low amount given the breadth of UNICEF's global operations. In those matters OAI investigated related to staff misconduct, disciplinary processes were completed in 26 cases. Other highlights from our investigative work include an updated anti-fraud policy and new sanctions procedures for implementing partners, a continued high volume of inquiries falling outside OAI's investigative mandate, and while progress has been made in this area, this underscores the the ongoing broader organizational need to strengthen managerial capacity and coordination among offices that are better suited to address such concerns. We also continue to allocate an increasing amount of resources to donor-related matters, including the development of a new policy on disclosure of integrity-related information for donors. The policy was launched just earlier this month and will bring badly needed efficiency and consistency to how disclosures are handled, while promoting transparency and respecting the need for confidentiality, but most importantly, building shared trust. Barriers to investigations persist, including adequate access to information necessary to complete investigations and obtaining victim consent to pursue certain investigations. Finally, I want to highlight some key goals for OAI moving forward. First and foremost, we will focus on ensuring UNICEF responds to the rapidly changing risk landscape that will emerge as it pursues its new forward focus. Within OAI, our focus will be on cost savings by moving a significant portion of our staff to lower-cost duty stations, recognizing our resources were already low relative to the increasing workload we are facing. OAI is already among the leanest oversight offices in the UN system. Within the budget OAI is ultimately provided, we will develop an office management plan and strategy focused on trying to maintain our role as a trusted advisor and ensuring UNICEF's resources are always used efficiently and only for their intended purposes. We will also implement the recommendations of the external quality assessment of our audit work, including expanded assurance mapping, increased advisory work, and expanded information technology risk coverage, always with the focus of providing adequate assistance to you and to management, and that most significant risks to UNICEF's ability to achieve its goals are adequately addressed and mitigated. With the help of our fraud team, the Investigations Section will continue to expand its efforts to respond to and deter fraud across UNICEF's operations. And we will continue to expand the integration of technology into all aspects of our work, including exploring how best to use AI and data analytics. We look forward to continuing to support UNICEF as we go through a period of change and evolution. Thank you, and I look forward to your questions.

I thank Mr. Zimmerman for his presentation. Ms. Susan Fuer, member of the Audit Advisory Committee, is joining us in the Joining us in lieu of Mr. Richard Chambers, Chair of the Committee, who regrets being unable to attend. She will be joining us online to share remarks from the Committee with the Board. Madam, you have the floor.

Thank you, Mr. President, Executive Director Mrs. Russell, and distinguished members of the Executive Board. Good morning. It is my pleasure to address you On behalf of my colleagues, on the 2024 Annual Report of the UNICEF Advisory Committee, also called the AAC. This follows the opportunity last month to have our first informal briefing with the Executive Board. Let me start by acknowledging the outstanding, tireless efforts of the UNICEF workforce, often operating in difficult contexts, to protect the rights of over and multi-party, and 460 million children impacted by violent conflicts. The ASC is a multidisciplinary group of 6 independent professionals serving pro bono with expertise in areas including oversight, evaluation, financial risk management, and governance. Its mandate is to advise the Executive Director on her governance, management, and oversight responsibilities and to inform the Executive Board through the annual report In 2024, we had open and constructive communications with the Executive Director, UN Board of Auditors, and the Ombudsman. The AAC's advice does not constitute statutory recommendations, but is meant to inform the decisions of the Executive Director and potentially the Board. The AAC's '24 work plan will— Together, they constitute the basis of this course. External and internal, the commitment to promoting a healthy cultural ecology, such categories of strategy and governance, Risk management and oversight. And oversight. I will now speak to its highlights. On strategy and governance, let me highlight 3 key points. First, to establish close linkages between transformation efforts and the 2026-2029 strategic plan. Second, to issue or update policies for artificial intelligence, grievance redressal mechanisms for environmental and social standards, and for anti-fraud.

Which recently—

Third, to develop a combined assurance map of external audit, internal audit, and management for monitoring key risks, and to identify assurance gaps or duplications and improve oversight efficiency. The ASC also looks forward to the decisions on the recommendations of the GIU report on board governance relating to audit and oversight committees. Next, on strengthening risk management. As an unwavering advocate for robust ERM, the AAC advised acceleration of enterprise risk maturity, actionable risk appetite statements, and smarter agile risk reporting. It urged strengthening the second-line compliance and fraud monitoring and establishing agreed risk tolerances with the board for cash-based programming, given concerns from external and internal audits on levels of hacked assurance. The AOC believes that UNICEF would benefit from having a Chief Financial Officer in the next quadrennium. Next, on oversight matters, on the internal audit investigations function, I will emphasize 4 recommendations. First, to clearly articulate the internal audit assurance gap to the Executive Director and to the Executive Board, including the extent of IT and low-medium risk grant country offices not being audited. Second, to focus management attention for timely closure of 27 internal audit agreed actions older than 18 months. Third, to undertake a causal analysis of the growth of investigations caseload and low fraud detection. And fourth, to review key performance indicators for performance culture and accountability. On the evaluation function, the committee was pleased to note its maturity progression and made 3 points. First, to ensure sustainable and adequate funding in order to maintain independence. This should be based on the agreed risk tolerance by management and the board for areas not evaluated due to funding deficits. Second, to review the appropriateness of the 1% target for evaluation spending in view of the changes in the program portfolio, risk appetite, absorptive capacity, and evaluation culture. And third, to ensure accountability for regional and country leadership on the actual evaluation expenditure. And implementation of evaluation recommendations. On the ethics function, the committee reiterated its advice to the ethics office to have an approved charter as it was designated as an independent office in 2021. Before closing, let me acknowledge the gravity of the funding challenges facing UNICEF subsequent to the issuance of this report and the consequential restructuring underway. While much of the AAC's advice is still relevant and even necessitates accelerated actions Some may be impacted due to the financing challenges. In this regard, the AOC closely monitored developments and advised the Executive Director last month on the key risks to monitor and manage. Additionally, it advocated safeguarding the integrity and budgets of the internal oversight services and permit them flexibility to redress after assessing the post-restructuring risk landscape. This approach will better serve UNICEF's longer-term interests. Lastly, we appreciate the Committee Secretary, Mr. Sunil Raman, for demonstrating model secretariat practices within the universe of United Nations audit and oversight committees. Mr. President, Executive Director Russell, and distinguished Board Members, I thank you for your attention.

I thank Ms. Fruha for the remarks from the Committee. I now invite Ms. Hana Suleiman, Deputy Executive Director, Management, to introduce the response from the UNICEF management. She will be followed by Mr. Nazim Khizar, Deputy Director, Division of Financial and Administrative Management, who will present the management response. Ms. Suleyman, you have the floor.

Thank you, Mr. President. Distinguished members of the Executive Board, ladies and gentlemen, it's my pleasure to introduce the management response to the 2024 Annual Report of the Office of Internal Audit and Investigations to the Executive Board. I would like to begin by sincerely thanking Mr. Stephen Zimmerman, Director of the Office of Internal Audit and Investigations, and his team for their excellent work in 2024. Management highly appreciates the valuable contributions of OIAI, which have facilitated improvements in the adequacy and effectiveness of the UNICEF framework of governance, risk management, and control, particularly in this increasingly challenging environment in which we operate. I would like to emphasize that we remain committed to expediting actions for the implementation and closure of outstanding audit recommendations and are continuously monitoring them as we move along. Mr. President, allow me also to express our sincere appreciation to Mr. Richard, Chair of the Audit Advisory Committee, and Ms. Suzanne Farrow, who's presenting the committee's annual report on his behalf today. We also extend our gratitude to all members of the Audit Advisory Committee for their valuable contributions and trusted advice to our Executive Director. Thank you very much, Mr. President, and I now hand over to Mr. Nazim Ghezzar, Deputy Director of UNICEF's Division of Financial and Administrative Management, to present our management response. Thank you very much.

Mr. President, distinguished members of the Executive Board, and colleagues, I'm pleased to present to you the management response to UNICEF Office of Internal Audit and Investigations 2024 annual report to the Executive Board. Firstly, on OII's independence. The Office of Internal Audit and Investigations, OII, confirmed its independence in determining audit scope, performing work, and communicating its results. The audit reports in line with the Executive Board decision 2012/13 were published and are in public domain. This demonstrates our accountability and transparency to stakeholders. On the assurance opinion, OIEI concluded that UNICEF framework of governance, risk management, and controls was generally adequate and effective in 2024. OIEI issued 17 audit reports in 2024. 24, of which 82% had generally satisfactory conclusions, and there were no unsatisfactory conclusions. While 22%— that's 29 of the 131 recommendations or agreed actions— are high priority, this is not expected to adversely impact global outcomes. Management welcomes the satisfactory audit opinion, which has been sustained over the past 9 years. On implementation of agreed actions, as of December 31st, 2024, 83% of agreed actions have been implemented from the '22-'23 audits, showing a strong indicator of follow-up and commitment to risk mitigation. For the 27 outstanding actions that are outstanding for more than 18 months from the 5 thematic audits, OIEI has accepted revised timelines, acknowledging the complexity and time-intensive nature of these recommendations. Consequently, management has reinforced its efforts to implement the agreed actions within the revised timelines. The 131 agreed actions issued in 2024 include implementation timelines beyond the 2024 calendar year. Management is proactively developing structured plans and prioritizing action implementation in recurring areas to ensure timely implementation of all 2024 agreed actions. Coming to the investigations, the total, total financial loss for cases substantiated by the Office of Internal Audit investigation was $460,471. As a large portion of these cases were finalized in the last quarter, recovery efforts are currently underway. Loss substantiated through investigations by an independent organization for project-specific cases in the cash-based transfer project amounted to an equivalent of $16,171, of which $15,733, that is 97%, was recovered. Management continues to promote ethics, integrity, and And anti-fraud measures in all its operations and has recently issued the revised policy on anti-fraud and corruption, along with the procedure on imposition of sanctions and remedial measures on implementing partners. Lastly, on the Audit Advisory Committee, management actively engaged with the Audit Advisory Committee through regular briefings and strategic responses, including sessions with the executive Director. The ASC also had an informal session with the Board this year at the request of the Board. Management appreciates and will continue to benefit from the committee's advice on governance, risk management, ethics, integrity, and oversight measures. We also welcome committee's positive feedback on the unqualified audit opinion and other key initiatives. I thank you and look forward to

I thank Ms.

Suleiman and Mr. Kizar for their remarks. Distinguished delegates, I now open the floor for comments. I give the floor to the distinguished representative of Norway. You have the floor.

Thank you, Mr. President.

Thank you. Thank you, President. I deliver this statement on behalf of Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Sweden, and my own country, Norway. Let me begin by thanking the Office of Internal Audit and Investigations and the Audit Advisory Committee for excellent reports and diligent service throughout the past year. For donors, the importance of trust in an organization's internal mechanisms for detecting fraud and misconduct cannot be overstated. Particularly for those of us that provide core support, this trust is directly tied to the possibility to provide continued unearmarked funding. As everyone here knows, we have in recent years been made aware of a serious and large-scale corruption in another UN organization. This has led to increased attention in our national parliaments and clear instructions to our governments to ensure the highest standards of anti-fraud mechanisms, particularly where core support is involved. With this in mind, we would like to draw your attention to a couple of issues on which we request that UNICEF elaborate to a greater extent on its plans to improve its internal practices and mechanisms. The Audit Advisory Committee in paragraph 30 of its report cites a much-used statistical estimate that around 5% of total revenue is generally lost to fraud, globally. For UNICEF, the actual figure is closer to 0.05% for 2024. While this is a hypothetical problem, we also agree with the Advisory Committee that it's something we should reflect on. The statistical discrepancy seems all the more important when we consider that UNICEF operates in a number of crisis situations where there is increased risk of fraud. The question is, what more specifically can UNICEF be doing in order to reduce the risk in the future? Along the same line, and to suggest some possible answers, we would like to draw your attention to the report of the OIAI. In paragraph 72, it states that it continues to face difficulties accessing critical information from subcontractors and government partners because of an absence of formal agreements with UNICEF. What will UNICEF be doing to remedy this challenge going forward? Is there a scope to increase the formalization of agreements? with its implementing partners. In paragraph 75 of the same report, the OIAI states that often critical information and evidence cannot be accessed even in UNICEF offices, presumably due to poor maintenance. This is a concern for us for obvious reasons, and again, we request that UNICEF elaborate on its plans to ameliorate the situation. Finally, we're also concerned with the widening gap between caseload and case closures, referred to in paragraph 57 6 of the OIA report, there has been a sharp increase in the number of new cases. Does OIA have the sufficient resources to manage the high number of pending investigations? I thank you.

I thank Nourif for his remarks. I now invite distinguished representative of the United Kingdom to have the floor, please.

Thank you, uh, Mr. President. The United Kingdom welcomes the 2024 Annual Report of the Office of Internal Audit and Investigations and the accompanying management response. We welcome the transparency and depth of analysis, which offers valuable insight into the strengths and challenges facing UNICEF's governance, risk management, and control frameworks. We appreciate that OIAI's internal audit work continues to focus on critical risk areas, providing assurance and identifying opportunities for investment. Similarly, the investigation function is playing a vital role in addressing a growing caseload of misconduct allegations. Allow me, Mr. Chair, to highlight 6 key points. First, the significant increase in reported allegations demands close attention. We note that overall increase in these cases by 68%, including cases of fraud, financial irregularities, and child safeguarding. While this may reflect growing confidence in reporting mechanisms, we would welcome the Office's interpretation of these trends and any early insights into 2025 patterns. Second, the growing caseload has led to a backlog of open cases and declining performance against investigation KPIs. We would appreciate the office's assessment of whether current resourcing levels are adequate and what steps are being taken to manage the caseload effectively. Third, we are concerned by the systematic challenges flagged in the report, particularly the lack of formal agreements with third parties, poor record management, and weak investigative capacity among partners. We urge UNICEF management to clarify what measures are being taken to address these challenges and to strengthen both prevention and accountability mechanisms. Fourth, we note the absence of clear reporting on lessons learned from investigations. We would welcome further investigation further information on how UNICEF captures and disseminates lessons from substantiated cases of fraud, SEAH, and other misconduct, including the number of management letters issued and follow-up actions taken. Turning to the management response, we welcome the engagement but found the narrative format challenging in terms of clarity and the traceability of actions. It was not always clear whether issues were being addressed systematically locally or at the country level. Finally, we note the reference to an external review of the anti-fraud framework and would be interested in learning more about this review and whether the findings will be shared with the Board. I thank you.

Thank you, UK. I now invite distinguished representative of the Netherlands.

Thank you, Mr. President. The Kingdom of the Netherlands would like to thank the Office of Internal Audit and Investigations their excellent work in 2024, which is exemplified by the positive external quality assessment report. We appreciate OIAI's efforts to keep— to try to keep up with the caseload, especially the investigations intake has increased significantly, a doubling in 2024 compared to 2022. We would therefore like to emphasize that adequate, predictable, and sustainable staffing and financing of OIAI is key The Kingdom of the Netherlands also wants to thank the Audit Advisory Committee for their annual reports and for the updates provided today and during the informal briefing. This provides us as the Executive Board with important information that supports us in carrying out our governance and oversight roles. We look forward to continuing this regular exchange with the AAC. The Kingdom of the Netherlands welcomes that OIAI has confirmed that during 2024, nothing came to the attention of the Office that would lead it to believe that UNICEF governance, risk management, and control processes were not adequate and effective. We have 3 questions. First, as we have discussed before, the low levels of fraud detection reported are concerning. We appreciate that with the establishment of a dedicated fraud team, an increasing number of cases were closed in 2024. Which steps will UNICEF take to ensure that more fraud is detected and reported? Second, the AAC flagged that the risk associated with an all-inclusive complaints platform is a surge in complaints referred to the OA— OIAI. Can the AAC elaborate on these concerns? And for UNICEF, what are your plans regarding the complaints platform, and how are you mitigating the aforementioned risks? And last, we appreciate that UNICEF is currently piloting a last-mile supply monitoring tool to enable tracking of supplies once they are transferred to implementing partners. When is UNICEF planning to evaluate and potentially scale up these pilots? Thank you.

Thank you, Netherlands. I now invite distinguished representative of the United States to have the floor.

Please.

Thank you very much. The United States thanks OIAI management and the Secretariat for the reports. We are pleased that the office continues to stress its independence and the lack of interference from management in its work. The United States notes yet another increase in sexual exploitation and abuse cases involving the staff of implementing partners, from 128 cases in 2020 2023 to 166 in 2024. We note that the office received approval in 2024 for a new P3 position— post, an investigation specialist, to help manage the growth of cases of sexual exploitation and abuse. Has the post been filled, and if so, how has that impacted caseloads? The United States notes the challenges cited in the report regarding allegations of fraud and sexual exploitation and abuse in implicating personnel of government and implementing partners. Can the Secretariat say more about how UNICEF can work with partners to strengthen investigative capacity and the necessary legal frameworks to support investigations? The report notes the continued significant growth in the caseload that outstrips available resources, contributing to a growing gap between the caseload and case closures. Despite successful efforts to to increase closure rates, the continued intake growth has contributed to a widening gap between the caseload and case closures. We note that the Office established financial losses to UNICEF from 10 cases of misconduct or wrongdoing or both, amounting to $460,471. How much of that has been recovered? Thank you very much.

I thank— I thank the United States. I now give the floor to the distinguished

Thank you, Mr.

President, and good morning, colleagues. I'm speaking on behalf of the EU as a donor. We thank you for your presentation of the office— sorry, we thank you for the presentation of the report, and we thank you also for your important work over the past years. We welcome the finding that UNICEF's governance, risk management, and controls continue to be assessed as generally adequate and effective. We appreciate the publication of 10 country and 7 thematic audit reports. It is encouraging to see that 82% of these were rated satisfactory. We trust that UNICEF will continue to address the 22% of agreed actions rated as, as high priority with determination, and we appreciate its efforts to complete remaining actions from the 2022 and 2023 audits. We note that in 2024, as in 2023, several key observations concern program management, We welcome UNICEF's proactive steps to improve the transparency of civil society partner selection, which is a key factor for advancing localization. We support the recommendation to enhance UNICEF humanitarian preparedness and response, and we welcome the creation of a global quarterly process to identify the 25 countries most at risk of emergencies, as well as the continued strengthening of risk-informed program monitoring and mitigation of risks related to protecting vulnerable persons from sexual exploitation. Exploitation, and abuse. We note that supply chain and services actions represented 25% of those agreed by audited offices. We welcome UNICEF's ongoing work to enhance supply tracking after handover to partners to minimize the risk of loss or diversion, including improvements to the last-mile supply monitoring solution, and we look forward to further progress across all regions. We strongly support OIAI's recommendation to reinforce fraud risks management, including training and awareness-raising among staff and partners. We acknowledge the complex challenges around access to information on fraud cases and appreciate UNICEF's commitment to finding practical solutions. We are confident that UNICEF will continue to strengthen its anti-fraud policies and compliance systems, and we welcome the transparency shown towards donors when allegations emerge involving EU-supported programmes. We commend UNICEF's continued efforts related to protection from sexual exploitation and abuse activities, including its survivor-centred approach and commitment to zero tolerance. We encourage continued engagement with partners to ensure timely reporting and the strengthening of their capacities to manage CI risks. We also look forward to the rollout of the new compliance and feedback mechanism to enhance accountability, especially for CI and fraud cases, as well as the finalization of the new safeguarding conduct— code of conduct for implementing partners. We would also be grateful if you could elaborate on this further in the Q&A. I would like to end with recognizing OIA's high level of professionalism and ambition and we underline the importance of preserving the integrity and resourcing of oversight functions, even in a challenging financial environment. And similar to a question from the UK colleague, could you share more on how you plan to sustain and further enhance the effectiveness of OIA's oversight and anti-fraud efforts, particularly with third parties? Thank you.

Thank you. I now invite the Secretariat to respond to the comments we have just heard. Please go ahead.

All right, I'll go first. Um, thank you for all those great questions, and let me try and, uh, address some of the broad topics. Let's start with fraud, uh, because that was a theme throughout a number of the topics. First, yes, I agree $460,000 in reported fraud losses for an organization that spends last year $6, $7 billion is extraordinarily low and is probably not indicative of what the actual risks are. But we have dedicated staff on the ground in our country offices that respond to fraud at the country office level and on the ground that has helped us mitigate those risks over the years. But I will say we do need to do more. And the good news is We have just now launched a significant effort to address fraud in a much more holistic and level— global level across operations. And that starts first with the new anti-fraud policy. The fraud policy came online in April or May, rather, so just a few weeks ago. And a key component of the anti-fraud policy is first the creation of an anti-fraud officer. That post has not yet fully been established, but will be over the course of the next several months, that will look over the implementation of the policy more broadly, including topics like prevention, fraud risk assessments. So we'll have a much more centered and clear view of how we're responding to fraud across the— around the organization. Second, we have the operationalization of the anti-fraud team within OIAI. I mentioned that in my comments. I've mentioned that This is the first year where the team is fully operationalized. We have 4 people that look specifically and only at fraud issues, and that has really allowed OAI to up its game. And I want to thank management for providing us the resources to bring this dedicated team online. They are taking— giving us an opportunity to really have a significant focus. And I can tell you already, cases that didn't make it into the 2024 annual report but will make it into the 2025 annual report, are already having a very significant impact. And third, and perhaps most importantly, is the creation of this new sanctions process that I alluded to in my comments. This is essentially a debarment process whereby we will— we as an organization now will have a mechanism to sanction implementing partners that are found to engage in fraud. There were mechanisms that existed previously, but they were not, in my view, sufficiently robust or truthfully sufficiently employed. Now, I'm not going to suggest that we're going to sanction every event of fraud, no matter its size and its significance, around UNICEF's global operations in 180 countries. This is about general deterrence. This is about using specific deterrence, individual cases, to send a message to the world, to the people who do business with us, that you should not, may not engage in fraud, and if you do engage in fraud in UNICEF operations, there will be costs. I also want to emphasize the importance of focusing on the second line of defense in the organization. Second, you know, unit OII is the third line of defense, to use an audit frame. The second line of defense are the parts of the organization that look at the transactional work going on, and OII is working closely with the second line of defense. And that includes the Office of the Comptroller, that includes our Global Shared Services Center, to make sure that we are looking for indicators of fraud, red flags of fraud, and catching them either before they mature into fraud or early on so we can take appropriate action. Um, let me also touch on the— this new complaint mechanism that's coming online that was mentioned by, uh, the AAC and others. That is also— this is coming up under the new Environmental and Social Safeguards Policy, and it is an issue that we have discussed and worked on and debated to an enormous extent over the course of the last year as the policy has been developed. It's a critically important policy. It's an incredibly important mechanism. And it does come with risk, which is why we have highlighted that. Again, this policy was rolled out, I think, Monday. So it's really— the proof will be in the pudding. We'll see what happens. It does pose a risk for how we handle a number of complaints, and we'll have to distinguish between those complaints that really belong under the new ESS mechanism and those complaints that need to come to OII. So, more to come on that. Again, work on that will be forthcoming. Access to information. Here, the issue really— we divide implementing partners, who are really the lifeblood of the organization. I believe we have about 8,000 implementing partners around the world that really are those responsible for the last mile. They are the key actors that we rely on to deliver the vaccines, administer the vaccines, to provide the textbooks, and so on and so forth. There are private sector implementing partners, civil society organizations, and there are public sector implementing partners, members of entities that are part of government. With respect to those that are not part of government but are civil society, we have fairly strong contractual arrangements to ensure their cooperation, and it is to them which the new sanctions process will provide. With our government partners, they are our partners. They are trusted partners, but we don't have the same types of contractual relationships with government partners. And that's where we're working hard to figure out how we can develop a trusted relationship with our government partners to make sure that we do have the access to information that we need when fraud occurs or there's indicators, and also that we have remedies in place. How do we address fraud? And that is an ongoing piece of work and does require more attention, and hopefully we'll have some positive news to report back next year. It is a component of the new anti-fraud policy, so it is another area that we'll be working with the anti-fraud officer and with our counterparts and our folks across the organization. Resources and the increased caseload. First, I've said this— I probably say this every year— I don't think an increase in the caseload is in any way should be assumed to be an indicator of an increase of fraud or misconduct. I don't think that's the case at all. I actually don't think that the level of reporting, as high as it has become, is that surprising for an organization of the size and the complexity of UNICEF. I also like to think, and I'll be a little self-congratulatory, that the work we have done of strengthening our systems and publicizing what those systems are, and that starts at the top and with my thanks to our executive director for emphasizing the importance of governance in this organization, that, that this is some of the dividends that come from that, and it is to be expected. How do we manage the resources necessary to manage those resources? That, of course, is a challenge. And right now we are in the midst of an enormous resource challenge. So we are constantly looking ways to be more efficient. The new fraud task force has helped us tremendously with responding to fraud cases. The new system we're using, we're now relying more and more on technology and work with the second line to find other ways, the least intrusive, most efficient way to deal with allegations. This is an ongoing process. I actually don't believe that an investigative function of this sort should be funded to deal with every possible allegation everywhere in the world. That's not a good use of the resources. But we need to find the right balance between resources that will protect the precious resources that you entrust to us while at the same time focused on efficiency. It is an ongoing process that we look at every day, and as I mentioned in my comments, we work with the organization to come up with internal mechanisms to deal with internal misconduct, and we're looking at more and more mechanisms such as the anti-fraud officer and the new sanctions process to deal with external fraud issues and external types of misconduct. The P3 post— someone asked very specifically— the United States has a specific question about whether P3 post has been filled? No, it has not yet been filled. And indeed, we are not filling very many posts right now as we go through a bit of a transition, as you're aware, in the organization. But we did bring on— in lieu of that, we have brought on a P5 secondment from another agent to work specifically on SCA issues as a temporary fix. And she has provided a tremendous boost in our ability to respond to SCA matters. So we will plan— We have— that is among the posts that has moved out of New York. As I mentioned in my comments, we're moving a number of our posts out of New York to lower-cost locations. So we do hope to fill that position once we're through this new budgeting process. I'll leave the amount recovered to DFAM. And I think I have addressed all the questions that were directed to me, and I'll turn it over to my colleagues.

Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Zimmerman. Mr. Kizar, please, go ahead.

Thank you, Mr. President. I'll try to address some specific questions. Firstly, from the EU, I think I would like to just thank you for your appreciation of the overall result and the publication of our reports, and we take note of your highlighting the need for completion of the agreed actions. As you've just mentioned, we have just issued our fraud— anti-fraud and corruption policy, and in terms of resources, as you know, there are obviously— there's going to be some restriction of resource availability, but within the available resources, we fully intend to make sure that these policies and actions that have been taking place are fully funded and that they are utilized to the maximum potential because we, we think of them as very, very critical in our fight against any fraud or corrupt practices. On the reporting challenges from the third-party personnel, we have really engaged very, very hard to raise awareness on the duty to report and how it feeds into the overall framework. We are also focusing on making sure that the IPs' capacity building of our IPs where we see any capacity issues. Also, through the UN Common Assessment Process, their abilities have increased and actually we are seeing enhanced reporting from their side. Also, the complaints feedback mechanism is going to address further— it's going to provide an additional avenue of reporting to management of these cases. So we believe that this is going to be very, very helpful for us moving forward. On these questions from colleagues, specific questions from United States on the $460,000 fraud that was substantiated, as I indicated in my presentation, this— almost 80% of these cases were finalized in the last quarter, and as we speak, we are, we are are right now undertaking efforts for recovery of these amounts. On the questions from Netherlands on the last mile supply monitoring tool, this is something that we have piloted in a few offices at this point in time. The results are very, very forthcoming, and our plan is to in the next 6 to 12 months period based on the results of the pilot to further spread the use of this last mile supply monitoring tool. This is also something that has been highlighted in our not only OIAI reports but also the UN Board of Auditors have also asked us to look into oversight of our inventories and supplies with third parties. So, this tool is going to be our main system to be able to achieve that. Yeah, on your question on significant increase of cases and adequate financing and staffing, For the unit, as you know, we are currently working on the next quinquennium budgets, which are going to be presented to the board in September. So we are looking into the resource availability and how this will be implemented. As Steve also mentioned, that second line of defense is also very, very critical, so we believe that does management We need to invest in all the 3 elements, the first, second, and third lines of defense, to be able to provide adequate resources to manage a sound internal control system. And all of these feed into a cohesive system where we can ensure risk management, proper governance, and internal controls being in place. On questions from UK, you mentioned about these audit reports in our response. There was lack of clarity in terms of whether these are systemic issues or these are projects— these are country-specific issues. So the issues that have come out of the country office audits, we look at them. Some of the problems are at the country level, which are addressed. But of course, as issues are identified, the country office, as the management, will look into what corporate changes or what changes in the system or policies that are required. The thematic audits that are undertaken by OII that have a more corporate reach, so any responses to thematic audits are mostly focused on the corporate response. But in the country office audit-specific cases, some of the responses are local, referring to the audit recommendations and observations made in those field offices. We are also— your question, lessons learned from fraud and PSEA cases, they are all the time being fed into our policy development work. We have rolled out a lot of policies, especially on fraud prevention, but I also want to highlight the work that we have done on the regulatory framework as well, on the policy on delegation of authority, because all of these elements actually work together to strengthen our system of monitoring, internal control, and oversight. So these cases and the issues that are highlighted by the audit are feeding directly into our policies and procedures as we bring in further improvements to them. Lastly, on the colleague from Norway, yes, I mean, it is— ASC in its report mentioned 5% as an average. Our current fraud substantiation is very low. As management, we obviously want to always remain much lower than the average, so that is definitely what we want to have, but there are concerns that if there is any underreporting. So as you have also heard from Steve, there's a lot of efforts we have put in place in terms of increased reporting, increased awareness, not only within UNICEF offices itself, but also with our implementing partners. In terms of next steps with these policies, the sanctions policy and the complaints and feedback mechanism rollout, we believe that these will be important elements to further strengthen the cases, identification of fraud cases in the future. Thank you. Level. On the agreements, while agreements— most of our implementing partners' agreements do contain already provisions that they have to share information with us in terms of whether there is a case of fraud or allegation of fraud, and I think the issue more here is the capacity. lot of our implementing partners, they're working in different country offices, they lack the capacity to deal with such cases. And that's also some area that we are trying to address at this point, as to how we work in somehow supporting our implementing partners to develop their capacities to effectively handle these cases and, and report to us. But as management, we'll continue to work with OIAI to further improve any, any, you know, improvements that can be further brought into our legal agreements that we are signing with them, and we'll report to you on that. So with that, I hand it back to you. Thank you, Mr. President.

Thank you, thank you, Mr. Ghezzar. I believe, Ms. Suleyman, you have also to respond. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Mr. President. I just wanted to compliment my colleagues. As both Steve and Ghezzar mentioned, we've issued our new fraud policy. I think what's important now over the coming months is to focus on the rollout, and by rollout we mean several things. There's orientation that we to do. There's training we need to do. There's improvement in our systems that we need to do. There's dialogue with our partners as well. So there's several things that we need to put in place and make sure that we're consistently following up at the different levels of the organization. We're sharpening our tools and systems. For example, we've already done that with travel. We're doing much more transaction-level monitoring. So these things have already started and will continue. We've set up a Sanctions Committee as well in terms of our partners. So that work goes on. The digitization is very important, and thank you to the distinguished delegate for mentioning that, the Netherlands. We are looking at expanding that to other countries and hopefully globally, as mentioned by my colleague. However, we're literally scrambling to find funds to do that. It's actually not— it's actually quite costly to do so. So we are looking now to see how we can find internal and/or external resources to be able to do that, because it is very important for our supply function and our supply division, and our regional offices are working hard on that front. In terms of strengthening partners, this is a really important point, and I think Steve gave the number in terms of how many partners we work with, which is an the thousands, it's really important that we also approach this from an interagency perspective. Within the IASC community, for example, within the other communities as well, because we almost always work with the same partners. And we do need to see how we can complement one another in strengthening the partners as well, because it is too much for any one UN or international or national entity to take on. So it does require more work at the interagency level, which we are pursuing as well, to see how we can do that. I'll stop there, Mr. President. Thank you very much.

Thank you. I thank the Secretariat for their exhaustive and detailed responses. As no additional delegations have signaled their wish to comment, we shall consider the UNICEF Office of Internal Audit and Investigation 2024 Annual Report to the Executive Board and Management Response later on under Agenda Item 20, the adoption of draft decisions. Distinguished delegates, we will now turn to consideration of Item 13, the Report of the Ethics Office of UNICEF for 2024 and Management Response. The report is contained in document E/ICEF/2025/21, and the response from the UNICEF management is contained in document E/ICEF/2025/22. These documents are being submitted to the Board in accordance with the Executive Board decisions 2010/18, 20— 18/11 and 2022/14. Mr. El-Sid Boutouyan, Director of the Ethics Office, will present the annual report of the Ethics Office and will be followed by, by Mr. Sajid Ali, Principal Advisor, Division of People and Culture, who will present the management response. I now invite Mr. Boutouyan to present the report.

Thank you, Mr. President. Distinguished delegates and colleagues, I'm honored to present on behalf of the ethics team the UNICEF Ethics Office Annual Report for 2024. I know you have carefully reviewed the report and the accompanying slides, so rather than restating, allow me to offer a few reflections why the work we do matters more than ever. First, as an independent oversight office, we consider the board an important, if not an equal stakeholder in our work. We rely on your continued interest in and support for our independence and effectiveness. In 2024, I am pleased to report that our office operated fully independently without undue interference. We thank management for supporting our office while respecting its independence. Second, as you look at the numbers as well as the qualitative outcome and impact our work, of our work, please remember that the Ethics Office in UNICEF is a very small team of 5 staff members trying to do very big things. Thanks in no small part to the strong advocacy from this Board, 2 ethics positions were only recently established to support this work. Third, we are relentless in measuring the added value that we bring to UNICEF. The overall theme animating the figures in our report demonstrate a significant year-on-year growth in staff engagement with and the number of services provided by our office. This year's data shows how our office has successfully established itself as trusted partner and advisor to UNICEF staff and management at all levels. Behind every number in our report is a person who sought help or a situation de-escalated before it became an ethical crisis. Next slide, please. These graphics depict the wide-ranging mandate of our office. We address conflict of interest and retaliation, ensure whistleblowing protection, raise ethical awareness, and provide confidential ethics advice and guidance. You will appreciate that our mandate is broad, and this is by design. We serve as first responders in times of employee conflicts, Workplace crisis, and when ethical risks threaten operations. Helping our leaders and our employees avoid doing the wrong thing, even if it isn't technically illegal, is our day-to-day task. On a good day, your ethics officers will identify ethical problems before they blow up. This helps UNICEF remain your partner of preference and employer of choice for our staff. Next slide, please. The table on the left shows that our reach is growing sharply. Our total services are up 55%. Advice and guidance requests up 24% from last year. Training and outreach up 51%, from 81 to 122 sessions reaching almost 8,000 staff, almost half of our population. And the protection against retaliation requests are up 180%. We can only be encouraged by these numbers that we see year after year since the level of staff engagement is a critical indicator of our effectiveness. The graph on the right captures a snapshot of our work, a dramatic trajectory in a 4-year period which shows that requests we receive almost tripled from 300 to 900 requests. This trend tells us something powerful, that staff and management recognize our office as a preventive resource, not just a reactive one. Next slide, please. This slide identifies a couple of the strategic shifts and a couple of the observations or trends we've been seeing over the year. In terms of strategic shift, we've aligned our work by updating our theory of change and applying a sharper definition of what we are here to do. And we identified coverage gap, which we try to bridge, and we strengthened measures that are proactive prevention rather than reactive. Some of the encouraging trends, let me very quickly go through them. We see a further diversification in the type of staff seeking our advice. Our previous strategy to reverse the old trend of addressing concerns mostly coming from HQ locations has borne fruit. In 2024, you can see 76% now are coming from the field. Up from just 38% in 2021. We are helping bridge the perceived gap between ethics in the center and ethics in the periphery. 2, shifts from individual to team consultations. Staff now increasingly come to us as groups or teams or offices. This underscores the role of the ethics office plays in terms of addressing systemic risk. 3, we see more and more earlier engagement. More colleagues now seek support proactively, enabling more effective risk management. 4, fewer anonymous requests. This reflects a growing level of trust in the ethics office's independence and commitment to confidentiality. 5, more word-of-mouth referrals. Staff who have engaged with us are recommending us to their colleagues, our best endorsement yet. And 6, more manager-level engagements. Leaders are reaching out to us for guidance to strengthen team culture. This in itself is a cultural shift. Next slide, please. We highlight here some of our key initiatives. We're very proud of our almost 500 ethics and culture champions across the globe in 137 UNICEF offices who remain our amplifiers, boosting staff engagement and early detection of ethical risk. This is quite a unique and a flagship achievement by UNICEF. No other initiative comes close within the UN system. system. In collaboration with the Global Staff Association, we piloted safe spaces— safe space focus groups to prevent and address sexual harassment. We build trust through dialogue, not just policy. In 2024, we modernized the Conflict of Interest Financial Disclosure Program with a new electronic platform that cuts costs and improves user experience. The result? 100% compliance. Lastly, we held our highly successful celebration of Annual Ethics Month with the bold theme From Safe Spaces to Brave Spaces, attended by almost 9,000 colleagues. Next slide, please. Various board decisions require us to update you on the adequacy of the resources for our office. Our current staffing level of 5 staff in addition to the director represents the bare minimum workforce required for a viable ethics office within an organization of this size and complexity. A sustained support for this current structure is vital. Management has signaled that it remains committed in strongly supporting the oversight functions despite the funding constraints affecting all offices. Next slide, please. In closing, please allow me to thank UNICEF management, our staff, for their leadership in this area, and this board for its continued support. As we all know, ethical culture begins at the top. As we navigate the turbulent times ahead, we must remember that true transformational change is not only structural. It should also be ethical. It should be approached with an inclusive, transparent, fair, and compassionate spirit. I look forward to your feedback and questions.

I thank Mr. Butuyan for his remarks. I now invite Mr. Ali to present the management response. You have the floor, Mr. Ali.

Thank you, Mr. President, distinguished delegates. On behalf of management, I'm pleased to respond to the 2024 report of UNICEF's Ethics Office. I would like to start by thanking Mr. Boutian and his team for all the work they have done in the last few years, and the results are there to be seen as presented. We deeply value the guiding principles of independence, impartiality, and confidentiality that the Ethics Office upholds, which helps UNICEF prevent, mitigate, and manage ethical, operational, and reputational risks. Management is happy to acknowledge that the Ethics Office reached more than 8,000 personnel in 2024 through targeted training and outreach efforts, increasing awareness and understanding of organizational standards. This includes delivering 122 face-to-face trainings and outreach sessions to nearly 6,000 personnel globally, a figure which is up from 81 sessions to 4,600 staff personnel in 2023. This extensive reach is a testament to the commitment of the Ethics Office to ethical education. The Ethics Office is a trusted resource that provides impartial, Confidential advice and a safe space for staff and non-staff personnel to raise concerns and seek guidance on ethical issues. Management values this essential support. We note that the number of requests for confidential ethics advice has tripled over the past 4 years. This sustained growth indicates the continued effectiveness of intensified training and outreach. Management commends the Ethics Office for playing a crucial role in policy and standard setting by reviewing and providing inputs on 34 draft procedures, guidance, and other documents. This highlights the commitment of the Ethics Office to robust governance. Management appreciates the efforts by the Ethics Office in contributing to UNICEF's accreditation by the Green Climate Fund, GCF. The Ethics Office also made significant progress in aligning with other United Nations entities, particularly through the Executive Directorate on financial disclosure and declaration of interest statements, and UNICEF policy on whistleblower protection and retaliation— against retaliation, and the charter for the Ethics Office. Management appreciates the increased efforts by the Ethics Office in 2024 to address requests for advice and formal protection against retaliation. This included conducting initial reviews and referring cases to the Office of Internal Audit and Investigations allegations for further investigation and recommending interim protection measures. The thorough handling of these cases is highly valued. Management applauds the Ethics Office for leading its 8th Ethics Month campaign in October 2024 with the theme From Safe Spaces to Brave Spaces, encouraging staff to engage in difficult conversations about mental health, fear of retaliation, and sexual harassment. This campaign reached about 9,200 colleagues across 25 offices, and it is very impressive. In its third year, the Ethics and Culture Champions Network has become a vital part of promoting an ethical and values-based culture. There are more than 480 ethics and culture champions in 137 offices contributing to a supportive workplace environment. Management is grateful for their dedication towards the this role. Management commends the Ethics Office for administering the Conflict of Interest and Financial Disclosure Program to help staff identify and manage conflicts of interest. The thorough verification exercise and consultation with the Division of People and Culture on senior staff compliance for contract renewals and appointments are highly appreciated. The Ethics Office selected 1,754 staff members for the Conflict of Interest and Financial Disclosure disclosure program in 2024, focusing on seniority and organizational risks and achieving a close to 100% compliance rate. Management applauds the Ethics Office for its active engagement with the Ethics Panel of the United Nations and the Ethics Network of Multilateral Organizations. Management is pleased to note that in 2024, the Ethics Office exceeded its objectives, reflecting increased trust and confidence through a significant rise in services requested and provided. The plans of the Ethics Office to enhance people management by focusing on ethical leadership and supporting supervisors in conflict resolution are highly commendable. We deeply value the proactive identification and addressing of ethical risks by the Ethics Office while continuously evolving to support the mission of UNICEF and uphold the organization's team reputation. The recommendations of the Ethics Office for exploring options for adequate long-term funding are also noted. Thank you, Mr. President.

I thank Mr. Ali for his remarks. Distinguished delegates, I now open the floor for comments and any questions you might have. I see distinguished representative of the Netherlands. Netherlands, you have the floor.

Thank you, Mr. President, for giving me the floor. And thank you, Mr. Boutoyan and Mr. Ali, for your presentations. The Kingdom of the Netherlands wants to thank the Ethics Office for the informative annual report and for the high-quality work that the Office has delivered in 2024. Your work is key in fostering an ethical and values-based culture within UNICEF, and we are pleased to see that indeed more and more staff members are reaching out to the Ethics Office. In particular, it is great to note the diversification in types of staff seeking advice, a shift towards early reporting, and a decline in anonymous requests. The Audit Advisory Committee also noted the growing portfolio of of the work of the ethics office, which indicates the growing credibility and stature of the office. With only a small team, you are able to accomplish a lot. We would like to make 3 points. First, for the ethics office to continue this work, we would like to emphasize that adequate, predictable, and sustainable staffing and financing of the ethics office remains key. Second, ethics is a culture, and this begins at the top. We call on UNICEF senior management to continue to demonstrate this, especially in these times of organizational changes and uncertainty for staff. And third, the Ethics Office was designated as an independent office in 2020 but has yet to have its own charter. We have understood that the office is currently working on this, and we call on UNICEF to make sure to prioritize the development and finalization of the Ethics Office Charter and to present the charter to the Executive Board for review and approval.

Thank you.

I thank Netherlands. I now invite the United States to have the floor, please.

Thank you very much, Mr. President. The United States thanks the Ethics Office, the Executive Director, and the Secretariat for the reports. The United States notes UNICEF's efforts at outreach and training in the field, including the annual Ethics Month. The United States notes the increase in the number of formal allegations of retaliation under UNICEF's revised policy on whistleblower protection against retaliation. The Ethics Office also notes the ongoing need to raise awareness about the strict requirements under the definition of retaliation in the policy. And we wonder, did the definition bring about the rise in allegations? And finally, could you say more about the work the Office is doing to look at measures that facilitate early detection of ethical risks for proactive prevention?

Thank you.

Thank you, United States. I would like to turn back to the Secretariat for the— some responses. To the questions we just heard. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Mr. President. I can go ahead to address a couple of questions directed to our office. Thanks to the question from the distinguished delegate from the Netherlands. Let me answer the last question relating to the Charter. We indeed identified the drafting of the ethics charter as a priority, and we have ongoing dialogues and constructive discussion with the Audit Advisory Committee on how important this work is, both for our office and both for the organization. We've begun in earnest to move forward with the work, and we've advanced it significantly. We paused it for some time because there were 2 parallel initiatives happening at the system-wide level. One is the UN Secretariat has— is, if not, has already completed a review of the Secretary-General's Bulletin regarding the Terms of Reference for the Ethics Office. So we thought it would be an opportunity to learn what would be the enhancement of upgrade resulting from that review. And revision, which could help inform the drafting of our charter. Similarly, the ethics community across 40 or 50 multilateral organizations have discussed and have come up with standards of practice for various ethics offices across the multilateral world. And similarly, we wanted to pause and wait for the outcome or the development resulting from that review and drafting of ethical standards and practices so that it could further inform and enrich our charter drafting project. This is all to say that I think those 2 processes have come to their completion, if not close to completion, and we are now ready to move forward to the next step. And we hope we can come back to the board and to management next year to present a draft of that ethics charter. Thank you to the distinguished delegate from the US noting the importance of our outreach activities, at the same time asking the very important question regarding the statistics on retaliation. There is indeed a dramatic increase in the formal cases filed with our office. We remain curious about the numbers. I wouldn't say seriously concerned because it's a snapshot of time within the year, so we would be curious to see whether the trend continues in the next few years, and we will be happy to report to the Board our observations and our initial take on the increasing numbers. But even with these big numbers, given the size and complexity of UNICEF, I would say This probably indicates a healthy atmosphere where staff are aware about the avenues or portals for bringing forward the complaints and feel confident or comfortable enough to surface and come forward with it. So I hope it's an indication of trust in the system and, and trust in the office. On the related question regarding how are we being smarter, more strategic in detecting ethical risks early, A couple of things I mentioned in the presentation relates to this early and proactive assessment or detection of ethical risk. One is we're more and more involved in the ground, in the field, when we do outreach and training. And when we say outreach and training, it's a significant preventive activity because when we're on the ground, we actually have one-on-one consultations with relevant staff members and leaders. That's a significant part of our activity. We sit in the office, they come in and share their observations, their complaints, their concerns, their feedback regarding various ethical issues within their offices. So that's a significant amplifier for our work. The other activity we mentioned is this ethics and culture champion, or it's an ethics ambassadors program, which basically could serve as your eyes and ears on the ground. We are a very small team, as I mentioned, um, you know, based in headquarters, and it is only if we hear from people who are on the ground, you know, who actually know what's happening within their teams, within their offices, are we able to, uh, both diagnose, detect, and determine the root cause for the, for the, for the ethical issues we're, we're witnessing. Thirdly, we're getting engagement more and more from leadership, actually. Our leaders in UNICEF are now very aware and very motivated to surface their issues. It's no longer a badge of shame that people have to deal with ethical issues, that they feel confident in reaching out to headquarters or offices and other affiliated services in order to get the necessary advice or guidance and support, and I think that's a healthy thing. Because as you mentioned, you know, ethical culture starts at the top, and as long as our managers and supervisors have to deal with this on a day-to-day basis are fully equipped with the information and the skill to deal with these issues, then the better for the organization. Probably in the long run, less work for us, and you'll probably see a decline in numbers, but overall it's good for UNICEF. Thank you, Mr. President.

Thank you, Mr. Butuyan. Mr. Ali? You have the floor, please.

Thank you to the question from the delegate from the Kingdom of the Netherlands, and Mr. Butian started answering that about senior managers. Of course, for us, we want our senior management to role model our values that we have in the organization, and even in processes, when it comes to selections, there is a check with the ethics office on any flagging of any ethical complaints. But we do have also a program that we launched last year. It's called Managing with Purpose. It's rolled out to all 6,500 supervisors in the organization, and of course it deals with many issues which were relate to ethics and compliance and also good management. So that's from the side— there are checks and balances on monitoring also ethical issues in the organization. Thanks a lot.

Thank you, Mr. Ali. Ms. Sullivan, please, you have the floor.

Thank you very much, Mr. President. I would really like to thank the Ethics Office. I mean, as you can see, they've They've done incredible work with a small team. Sometimes small is better. You know, so just saying. But they've done a really great job, and we really thank them. They've mobilized the entire organization behind the work that is happening. So very much thanks to Sid and the team. I do want to come back to the issue of resources, and it also came up earlier in the session on the Office of Internal Audit and Investigations. in terms of the importance of predictable financing and financing overall for the independent functions. Of course, we share that concern very much. But as we said before in previous sessions, our core resources are either stagnant or going down. And by next year, they will go down significantly. You will see that in the integrated budget that we will submit in September. And when we mentioned it at that time, we weren't even in the crisis that we were in today. Now it's even much more dire. So as much as we would like to protect the resources, we are going to face significant cuts across our structure. And we're going to have to find ways to increase efficiencies, use technology, use AI, use different strategies that can help us alleviate or mitigate to some extent. But ultimately, the cut in resources will have a significant impact across the organization, and that is core resources as well as non-core. So I just want to be clear on that point because we as management, the executive board, our independent offices need to be very conscious and clear in terms of expectations.

Thank you.

and what can or cannot be done. And because of that, also with the other organizations, we're trying to pursue as much as possible to do things jointly. We're looking into the Ombudsman's Office to see what more we can do jointly, et cetera. And this goes into several areas of work to try to do more through consolidation because we're all facing this financial crisis that you're very well aware of. So I just I just wanted to highlight that and we're trying constantly to brainstorm internally and externally on what more we can do to preserve the programme as well as the supportive functions and the independent functions. Thank you very much, Mr. President.

Thank you. I thank the Secretariat for their remarks. If no other delegation wishes to take the floor at this time, consider the report of the Ethics Office of UNICEF for 2024 and management response later on under Agenda Item 20, the adoption of draft decisions. The next item on the agenda will be Item 12, the annual report for 2024 on the evaluation function in UNICEF, contained in document E/ E/ICEF/2025/23, and the response from the UNICEF management contained in the document E/ICEF/2025/24. Mr. Robert McCouch, Director of Evaluation, will present the report and will be followed by Ms. Vidya Ganesh, Director, Division of Data Analytics, Planning, and Monitoring who will share the response from the UNICEF management. Mr. Markowicz, I now invite you to take the floor.

Thank you very much, Mr. President and distinguished delegates. It's an honor, as always, to be presenting this annual report. So, next slide, please. As you'll recall, 2024 marked an important milestone, with UNICEF's revised evaluation policy taking effect on January 1st. This represented a significant step forward in repositioning our function to deliver on its dual learning and accountability role, and in so doing, help UNICEF remain as fit for purpose, efficient, responsive, and impactful as possible in the years to come. Next slide, please. With respect to our key performance indicators, we have used a traffic light approach here to signal where we saw progress, where results were mixed, and where challenges remained. In 2024, the number of evaluation submissions stabilized, and quality, which was generally already satisfactory to highly satisfactory, incrementally improved. We saw strong performance in the integration of disability and gender lenses into our evaluations, but on gender, we do in fact need to continue our efforts to strengthen our performance in this area. Timeliness of management responses remained a significant challenge, So here too, we continue to work closely with colleagues to address these bottlenecks. And finally, after several years of declining evaluation expenditure, we saw a reversal of this trend in 2024. While this is, of course, a very positive development overall, the report before you mentions a few important caveats to this indicator. Next slide, please. KPIs are, of course, just one important part of the story. Our ultimate goal is to deliver consistently high quality high-value evaluations that ultimately lead us all to ever better results for children. On this slide, we've summarized our many measures in 2024 to ensure that this is the case, and consistently so across the organization. Some of these efforts are what we refer here on the slide to as quote-unquote hardwiring measures, that is the production of concrete documents to aid policy implementation. Other efforts are softwiring, that is the building and solidifying of relationships and of the ways we work to foster an environment in which our evaluations can consistently make a difference for children. Next slide, please. Strengthened evaluation partnerships were a powerful driver of progress in 3 specific areas of strategic importance for moving the needle for children: national evaluation capacity development, impact evaluation, and evaluation synthesis. These are the 3 pillars of what we're describing on this slide as a a sustainable evaluation movement to accelerate progress for children among a growing coalition of like-minded partners, including senior policymakers and other government officials, donors, UN agencies, IFIs, NGOs, philanthropies, the private sector, and young people themselves, who are all passionate about harnessing robust evidence to strengthen our collective accountability to children and to their future. Next slide, please. In parallel to these strategic shifts, we have of course remained intently focused on our core responsibility of delivering timely, credible evaluations that support decision-making by UNICEF and its partners. This slide presents a small sample of these in 2024. There are many others at all levels of the organization that are helping our UNICEF colleagues and partners improve their work for children. Your delegations have heard some examples of our positive contributions to our colleagues' work in this very session, and we are delighted to know that our work is valued and used. Far from aiming to be independent to the point of irrelevance, as the saying goes, what we're aiming for is to be independent and impartial in order to influence and improve our collective work for those we serve. Next slide, please. This last slide summarizes our key priorities for 2025 and beyond. First and foremost, in addition to our core focus on producing evaluations that make a difference, we will of course continue to make progress in strengthening the function. Second, the current crisis has prompted us to pivot along with the rest of the organization. Accordingly, we have been proactive, together with my audit colleague Stephen and his team, in providing inputs to aid management in navigating this moment of unprecedented change. Another key priority will be to ensure that in this period of uncertainty, disruption, and change, the integrity of the evaluation function remains intact and that the function is well positioned to fulfill its role as an independent and trusted source of knowledge of what is working, what is not working, and why, despite the many significant changes underway. Preserving the integrity of the evaluation function means a few concrete things. Number one, that we have a team and budget to ensure that what we see to be the key learning and accountability needs of the organization receive an adequate and appropriate level of evaluation. attention. Number 2, that the decisions that affect the evaluation function, whether around restructuring, relocating, resourcing, or reporting lines, are made with us. And number 3, that we are able to ask the questions that need to be asked about how we're doing, whether we're doing the right things, how well we're doing them, and what we are and aren't accomplishing through them, and why, and to deliver the answers to these questions in an open and transparent manner. These aspects of our integrity will be even more vital to our ability to support the organization and the Executive Board in the challenging times ahead. Next slide, please. In closing, Mr. President and distinguished delegates, I'd like to thank you and management for your continued engagement and support. I very much look forward to your delegation's questions and feedback.

Thank you.

I thank Mr. Markhouse for his presentation. I now invite Ms. Ganesh to present the management response to the annual report.

Thank you so much, Chair. I don't have a presentation, which I hope you'll be happy to know, and I'll just respond with some key messages as part of the management response to the excellent annual report that Rob has just presented of the evaluation function. I want to really start by congratulating the evaluation office and the entire team across the 3 levels of the organization, that the— the new revised evaluation policy went into effect on 1st January 2024, and it has been instrumental to bring about the shifts and changes that you've just heard in the report. Overall, management is pleased to report that the independence of the evaluation function remains strong, while also being able to make further strides in working together with other evidence functions to help improve programming and organizational learning, particularly towards the shared direction of strengthening outcome and impact-level evaluations. The step— there was also, as you also heard, there was a stabilization in number of evaluations to pre-pandemic levels. And we also saw a shift, which is the right direction, in terms of the— away from the quantity to better quality and integrating availability assessments within evaluations, besides just being standalone products. We also note that the coverage of the countries according to the revised policy has been a challenge in some regions, but we are encouraged that the function has been innovative in maximizing the use of resources to strengthen these trends and key performance indicators, and specifically to more impactful evaluation, as it— as you've heard. We also found the use of the risk-based evaluation planning tool, which provides more rigor and transparency, to be innovative and also methodologically sound, to help with the transparency and to process and identify themes that are relevant as we go into our next quadrennium plan. Despite the challenging financing environment, we do note that increase in program expenses spent on evaluation went further up towards the further to 1% target, both in absolute terms, which is very important, $47.9 million, that's a good amount of money, as well as a percentage, which is at 0.62%. We recognize and value the strategic evaluation partnership that's been developed with the German Development Corporation, Wellcome Trust, to name a few, that also helps us to leverage other effective evaluations and partnerships. Evaluation is also doing its part in the UN system, and it's encouraged, and we note the success of the evaluation function in leveraging both technical capacity but also resources to the tune of $74 million. In terms of rapidly moving on to addressing the credibility and some of the issues that were discussed at the last board and also brought up, the— and the concerns to help improve the credibility, the reversing of the decline in evaluation expenditure has been driven by the evaluation leadership at all levels, and as we continue to troubleshoot the underinvestment within the overall sphere of decreased financial environment that we face. The gender equality in evaluation continues to remain a challenge, and this is where you also heard from Rob that the evaluation function is continuing to do its bit and more to meet the UN SWAP standards. In terms of addressing the evidence gaps, the innovative solutions, synthesis, etc., have also helped improve, and for particular note was the meta-synthesis of the child marriage in South Asia, which has really helped inform global discussion. This was a particularly tough issue to handle, and this was yet another way to find programme and policy solutions. There has been an increase in number of impact evaluations, as has there been an increased engagement of the youth. In terms of the relevance and the utility and contribution of this function, as you also heard, we are happy that we got timely and useful evaluations recommendations to help with our framing of the strategic plan, the gender policy, the humanitarian efforts, to name a few. And also, the quality of evaluations remains satisfactorily overall, and we really congratulate team for that. We are continuing to strengthen the quality of the evaluation evidence produced by member states and civil society, and therefore, one of the 3 pillars that you heard in terms of over and beyond what we do internally to strengthen the national evaluation capacity is much appreciated. The success should be celebrated, and as we look ahead at constrained financial environment, we foresee new challenges that we may be faced in both maintaining the KPIs alongside the scaling of the success and impact evaluation. Nevertheless, progress has been made and it's encouraging, and we commend the evaluation functions for its achievement. Thank you very much.

I thank Ms. Ganesh for her remarks and now open the floor for discussion. I see this Distinguished representative of Netherlands asking for the floor. You have the floor, Netherlands.

Thank you, Mr. President. We very much welcome the presentation and the important work of the Evaluation Office. The Audit Advisory Committee noted that the Evaluation Office has elevated the capabilities and culture of the evaluation function at UNICEF and is moving in the right direction. We would like to encourage office to continue this good work. We especially appreciate the use of impact evaluations. We would like to encourage UNICEF to strengthen its focus on outcome-level change. The Kingdom of the Netherlands would like to emphasize that adequate, predictable, and sustainable staffing and financing of the evaluation function is key, among others, to maintain the integrity of evaluation as a robust, independent function. We would like to ask the following 3 questions. First, we note that timeliness of management response submissions in the past 2 years has declined, with only 50% of evaluation reports being followed by timely management responses. Which steps are you planning to take to ensure that the timeliness of management response submissions improves? Second, the Evaluation Office notes a decrease in evaluations covering humanitarian action despite more Level 3 evaluations. How is UNICEF going to ensure humanitarian action receives the necessary evaluation attention? And third, we note with concern that although evaluations more systematically incorporated gender and disability lenses, the meaningful incorporation of gender concerns remained unacceptably low. This is despite an intensive effort to improve performance in this area, so it's not easy to tackle. How is UNICEF going to address these persistent challenges of incorporating a gender lens within all evaluations? Thank you.

I thank the Netherlands. I now give the floor to the distinguished representative of Germany, Vice President of the Executive Board. You have the floor.

Thank you very much, Mr. President, for giving me the floor. I have the honour to deliver this statement on behalf of Australia, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Georgia, Greece, Iceland, Ireland, the Kingdom of the Netherlands, Japan, Luxembourg, New Zealand, Norway, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Türkiye, the EU as a donor, and my own country, Germany. We thank Director McCouch and his team for the 2024 Annual Report on the Evaluation Function, and we welcome the constructive management response provided by UNICEF. The Evaluation Function continued to deliver on its core mandate in 2024. The revised Evaluation Policy has been effectively put into practice, as evidenced by several concrete examples: the prioritization of strategically relevant evaluations over sheer volume, the significant scale-up in national evaluation capacity development, the timely and high-quality evaluation of the current strategic plan, and the organization of the Global Impact Evaluation Forum. We emphasize— we appreciate the clear emphasis placed on evaluation within the draft Strategic Plan 2026-2029, recognizing its dual role of accountability and learning, and as a catalyst for change. 2 of the 3 intentional shifts focus on evidence and evaluation: achieving scale and impact, and differentiated programming and strategies for acceleration. We particularly welcome the commitment to generating high-quality evidence, as well as the dedication to strengthening national evaluation systems in partnership with governments and the broader UN system. Together, these elements lay a strong foundation for a more agile, resilient, and accountable organization. In this context, we also encourage UNICEF management to play an active role in championing evaluation across the organization. Fostering an evaluation culture is not the responsibility of the evaluation function alone. It requires visible and sustained commitment from senior leadership to ensure that evidence is not only generated but also meaningfully used. As Executive Board members and observers, we see evaluation as more relevant than ever. UNICEF operates in a dynamic and uncertain environment, making the ability to learn, adapt, and respond effectively essential to remaining impactful for children worldwide. Evaluations help decision-makers determine which interventions deliver the greatest return on investment. This is particularly true for impact evaluations, which provide the robust evidence needed to take the most effective and cost-efficient decisions. As the annual report highlights, evaluation is a smart investment, improving performance, managing risks, and enhancing credibility for a future-fit UNICEF. Funding remains a concern, and I do acknowledge Ms. Suleyman's earlier remarks on the issue of financing the independent functions. Despite increased evaluation spending in 2024, the 1% target remains out of reach. This shortfall is particularly evident in certain country contexts, where evaluation investments remain inadequately aligned with operational scale and risk exposure. We strongly encourage UNICEF to remain committed to achieving the 1% target, including through a well-funded evaluation pooled fund. For a future funding model, we support the Audit Advisory Committee's proposal to base financing on costed annual work plans reviewed annually by the AAC. This approach would help better align evaluation coverage with the organization's absorb— absorptive capacity while enabling more predictable budgeting. The annual adoption of the evaluation budget would broaden accountability for delivery, extending it beyond the Director of Evaluation to include the Executive Director and the Executive Board. In times of significant budget constraints that UNICEF has to face, it is vital to maintain the independence of the evaluation function. We urge UNICEF management to consult with the Director of the Evaluation Function before undertaking any restructuring or cost-cutting measures to ensure that the integrity, credibility, and operational capacity of the function are not compromised. We reaffirm our strong support for a robust robust, independent and well-resourced evaluation function. As UNICEF embarks on its next strategic plan, evaluation must remain central to delivering results for every child in an effective—

I thank Germany. I now invite the Secretariat to respond to the comments we have just heard. Mr. Macauccia. You have the floor, please.

Thank you very much, Mr. President, once again, and to the distinguished delegates for their positive feedback as well as questions and comments on the function. I'll try to tackle as many of these as I can, and if I haven't adequately responded to them, please do let me know. To the distinguished delegate from the Netherlands, yes, indeed, timeliness of management response submissions remains a concern. We're always very, very sensitive to this notion of what can we do better within the function to ensure that we get the most traction out of the recommendations, and what we can do together with management to ensure that they're not only timely but also meaningfully address the recommendations we're making. So I can say on our side what we're doing, what we're going to be trying to do moving forward, is to really try to synthesize or summarize the recurring recommendations that keep coming up, whereby if we could say, you know, in half of our evaluations, something about human resources or risk management keeps coming up again and again, rather than continuing to try to find entry points at country office level, well, is there a way we can address that at a different level? In a much more efficient way so that we're not burdening too many of our colleagues where it might not even get the most impact. Other things that we're doing, of course, moving forward, we are going to be selectively— we can't do this in every case, but where there are issues that we do continue to find a recurring theme that requires continued evaluative attention, we are going to increasingly go back to that same issue to see why it is that recommendations haven't been adequately either acted on, or they were acted on, but for whatever reason, things have changed. Some of our recommendations are no longer relevant, but what the situation is that can be changed. So, 2 examples that we've already done in this area: one was on emergency preparedness, and the other was on UNICEF's cluster leadership agency role. We did 2 evaluations, bookended 10 years apart, on each of those 2 themes, to come back to those. On the resourcing of humanitarian evaluations, indeed, I'm not going to delve into the bigger issue of resourcing the function. That's separate from this. But what I can say is that, very much in keeping with what my colleague Steve Zimmerman said on the audit and investigation side, within the Future Focus initiative and the current restructuring, we have identified numerous ways, and we discussed these even before the current crisis, things that we can do within the function to find greater cost efficiencies, greater efficiencies. So, for example, we talk about surge capacity in humanitarian action. Well, why don't we have surge capacity within the function so that if we become overwhelmed with L3 evaluations, we have some bench strength, you know, a cadre of colleagues who we can move away from something that might be a little bit less time-sensitive or urgent at the time, to support our humanitarian team. We have now recruited a 3rd fixed-term position to help us additionally solve that. And, of course, to be very frank, and this comes through, I hope, in the annual report, our evaluations continue to be too expensive in a lot of cases. So we absolutely have to find cost efficiencies. Thank you.

efficiencies.

One of the ways is to move away from, you know, an intense reliance on institutional contracts with very expensive vendors, and instead engage in individual contracts that we then manage. We find oftentimes we spend a lot on the evaluation, and then we spend a lot at the back end rewriting the report, because no one can understand what the consultants were trying to say. So there are a number of measures that we're taking in the function that I actually I welcome this, the current opportunity to kind of make some of those changes that we've been talking about for some time. Finally, on the issue of meaningful incorporation of a gender lens, absolutely. We were very candid in this annual report and in the previous one that this is not an area that we're doing well on. So what we've been doing within the function so far has been to continually refresh. There's excellent guidance on this topic. We don't need to recreate the wheel. We know what it takes to integrate a meaningful gender lens. We're just not doing it. So what we've done, number one, we've tried to diagnose what the real issues are. So we know, for example, that when we plan our evaluations, there's a really good plan for meaningfully integrating gender. As the evaluation progresses, it becomes less and less well integrated. So we need carrots and sticks.

We need—

And incentives.

those continual refreshers on the guidance. But frankly, we also need to apply a greater quality assurance lens to this issue. And I can say, on a very personal level, when I see terms of reference now, I hyperfocus on what the gender lens is. You know, if there's no question in there, or if it's a very generic question around gender-disaggregated data, that's a red flag for me. So, um, so we need to keep our, our eyes on the ball. And finally, I'll just say thank you very much, um, to the distinguished Elliot from, from Germany and, and all of the other, uh, members of the board, um, for the positive feedback. Um, um, the, uh, on the, on the cost evaluation plans, indeed, um, we do produce these every year. Uh, we've only started sharing them with the Audit Advisory, uh, Committee this year. So, um, very, very happy to continue doing so.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. McCouch. Ms. Ganesh, you have the floor.

Thank you. I'll make 3 quick points and then Hanan will add. On the timeliness of the management response, what we wanted to say is that from a management perspective, we want to really continue to focus on the utility of the evaluations and work with the evaluation office to strengthen ways and means to frame recommendations that help with improving the response. The action has begun on most of the management response, even if there's overall delay. That's just to give you a bit of a perspective on on how we can better handle the timeliness of the management response, both in terms of the timeliness, but as well as in framing of the recommendations. And also, the— as we improve the scope of the evaluation, we deliberately expect it to be more complex, because we want to address some of the more persisting wicked problems, like they say. So it requires a little bit more time and and careful consideration. So, sometimes the time is not always there. So, we're aware of the 60 days, but these are some of the caveats that make— keeps us focused on the quality and the value and the utility of the evaluation. Maybe next final point is just to remind all of us that the— in terms of the contribution of the core resources to the 1%, it far exceeds the targets. Where we are struggling is on the OR as well. And with the decreasing— our resources, we really have to find better ways by which we can, and if it's possible, to kind of maintain that 1% target.

Thank you, Ms. Ganesh. Ms. Suleiman, please, you have the floor.

Thank you, Mr. President, and thank you to Rob and the team in the evaluation office, and thank you, distinguished delegates. Just to continue on the issue of resourcing, you heard my statement. I'm not going to repeat it because I know you're tired of hearing that, but it's okay. We will do all that we can to meet the 1% target, but in this constrained financial environment, it will become even more difficult. From the management side, we are to that, but it will be difficult. I would also like to acknowledge the advice from the Audit Advisory Committee to look at the criteria, including the 1%, and I think this is an opportunity to take a holistic perspective, because evaluation is one tool amongst others in the organization. We have our independent tools. We also have functions within the organization like data, research, not independent reviews and exercises. And the totality of that is what positions us strongly. So we would also like to make sure that through this exercise that we're going now, that we also holistically are capacitated to make sure that the independent functions can do their role, as well as the other functions that are complementary. So that is also equally important. Important as we go ahead. For the restructuring exercise that we're going through now, we have asked all divisions and offices to cut in terms of the cost of doing business and to find additional efficiencies and to explore internally and externally what can be done jointly with others. And as we go through that exercise, we will look at interdependencies, we will look at how different parts of the organization reinforce one another. And an important part of that process is the consultation. All offices have been advised to consult with their supervisors, with other offices where there is a convergence, and that does come up in the discussions. So we're going through the process now. We will do our utmost to make sure that holistically we're equipped, both for the independent offices as well as other offices, and So I'll stop there. Thank you very much, Mr. President.

I thank the Secretariat for their remarks. If no other delegation wishes to take the floor at this time, we shall consider the Annual Report for 2024 on the Evaluation Function in UNICEF and Management Response later on under Agenda Item 20, the adoption of the draft decisions. Distinguished delegates, we will now turn to item 16 of the agenda, the annual report on the risk profile of UNICEF, which is contained in document E/ICEF/2025/25. The report is being presented to the Executive Board in accordance with its decision 2024/16. The report focuses on top risk appetite and management and mitigation of critical risks for the coming year. I now invite Ms. Hanan Suleyman, Deputy Executive Director, Management, to introduce the report. She will be followed by Mr. Jacob van der Blijt, Chief Risk Officer, who will present the report. Please, Ms. Suleyman, you have the floor.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

You have the floor.

Thank you, Mr. President. Distinguished members of the Executive Board, ladies and gentlemen, it is my pleasure to introduce the Annual Report on the Risk Profile of UNICEF. As we are all experiencing, our operating environment remains very volatile and uncertain, making robust and agile risk management a critical tool to be able to continue to deliver for children. We continue to be committed to further optimize our risk management practices in line with the new vision presented to you last year. And following your request, we are proud to present to you today our first annual report on the risk profile of UNICEF. This allows us to engage you on the critical risks of strategic importance and to ensure a supportive environment for risk-taking where necessary to reach children. Thank you, and I now hand over, with your permission, Mr. President, to our Chief Risk Officer, Jacob van der Bilge. Thank you.

Thanks, Hanaan.

We do indeed operate in a very volatile and uncertain world, and various external risk factors therefore affect UNICEF's risk profile. Conflicts are dominating our corporate emergency response efforts, and violence, as many mentioned earlier during this meeting, increasingly poses serious threats to aid workers. Geopolitical tensions pose risks to multilateral cooperation, economic fragility, and high levels of debt pose risks to the fiscal space of countries, and the current aid funding crisis jeopardizes gains made and the aid delivery ecosystem going forward. And finally, risks posed by macro trends in terms of demographics, new technologies, and climate change also need to be navigated. Against that context, this year's Risk Report highlights 6 critical risks of strategic importance for UNICEF: cuts in flexible funding, restricted access to beneficiaries, misuse and aid diversion, cyberattacks and digital disruption, inadvertent harm of our programmes and operations, and potentially diminished impact. Some of these are already materializing to some extent— for example, the funding cuts— but by definition, risks are potential future events that may or may not happen, but require anticipation and proactive mitigation to the extent that it is within the control of UNICEF. We welcome a constructive dialogue with the Executive Board on these risks to ensure a supportive environment for risk-taking where necessary to reach children. The report sets out detailed definitions of these risks and corresponding mitigation actions. It is a first-time report, and with risk management being a dynamic and iterative process, we will continue to refine our understanding of these top risks and unpack these further in our Senior Management Risk Committee, and integrate insights from audits, evaluations, and other reviews as these come in. The report also has a section on risk appetite, stating that UNICEF embraces the need to take risks to achieve its ambitious mission, recognizing that the biggest risk is not reaching children. We want donors, our staff, and our implementing partners to understand that many risks are inherent in our business operating and delivery model, and we cannot afford, therefore, to be risk-averse when navigating uncertain and unpredictable operating contexts. UNICEF is therefore, in general, willing to face and take risks that are required to deliver results for children, while ensuring robust risk management systems are in place to proactively identify, manage, and monitor those risks to ensure that they stay within the agreed risk appetite, and that benefits continue to outweigh the risks. We also continue to make progress on implementing our new vision for risk management, as presented to you last year. The report provides an update against all 6 pillars of this vision, such as revising risk policies, instilling a risk-aware culture, and simplifying and harmonizing tools and processes to make risk management actionable and simple, and to connect the dots across the organization. Proactive risk management will continue to be a key focus of the organization during the next strategic plan period, with strategic risks informing the strategic plan and being monitored and managed as part of its operationalization. Thank you very much, and back to you, Mr. President.

I thank Ms. Suleyman and Mr. Van den Bries for their remarks. open the floor for discussion. I see distinguished representative of Sweden. You have the floor.

Thank you, Mr. President, and for giving me the floor, and thank you, Chief Risk Officer, for making this presentation of the most significant risk to the organization and progress of putting measures of effective risk management policies and procedures in place. We appreciate the harmonized and bottom-up approach to annual risk reviews and reporting from country offices, regions, and divisions, and foremost, the tight collaboration with internal audit evaluation colleagues and senior management risk committee. Sweden has a strong and deep partnership with UNICEF. We understand the need for the organization to take risks to fulfill its mandate, as we are contributing to core support that is meeting the Funding Compact target, humanitarian response to the severest crises, and development cooperation in close to 30 countries and thematic strategies. Yet, in order to sustain the public commitment to development cooperation and humanitarian aid. It's critical to limit the obvious and unnecessary risk-taking that might jeopardize this trust. We are particularly pleased to hear UNICEF's willingness to engage in shared risk dialogues with the Executive Board when needed, and to ensure supportive environment for necessary risk-taking. Sweden sees that this shared risk dialogue is equally important at the country level and can share good examples of country risk dialogues. We would like to pose 2 questions in this regard. Do you have discussions on how to systematize these risk dialogues at the country level with partners? And can you expand how UNICEF is mitigating the impact of the decrease of funds and core resources to risk capacity, particularly in country offices where risk capacities are not yet in place. Thank you.

I thank Sweden. I now give the floor to the distinguished representative of the Netherlands.

Thank you, Mr. President, and thank you, Mr. van der Bijl, for your presentation. The Kingdom of the Netherlands welcomes the annual report on the risk profile of UNICEF. We concur with UNICEF's vision, and we recognize that not reaching children is the biggest risk. As we have discussed before in this board, risks are a fact of life, and it is key to foster an open culture of risk awareness within UNICEF. Thank you, Mr. President. UNICEF. The link between risk management and culture change is an important one. We encourage you to continue engaging with the organizational culture and diversity team on this to ensure that throughout the organization and at all levels, open discussions are taking place regarding risks, risk appetite, and risk mitigation. We call on UNICEF to keep us as an executive board informed of the steps that are being taken on this risk journey and to keep engaging with us on this, including on the risk policy that is currently being developed. We have one question. The Audit Advisory Committee flagged the need to accelerate the risk maturity growth, especially to manage the high velocity of impactful risk events. Although that is not something that can be changed overnight, can you share with us how you are accelerating several milestones in the risk journey? Thank you.

Thank you, the Netherlands. I now give the floor to the distinguished representative of the United States.

Thank you very much, Mr. President. The United States welcomes efforts for improved risk management and risk mitigation and thanks UNICEF for the report and its proactive approach to risk management. The United States notes with encouragement UNICEF's UNICEF's commitment to deepen donor engagement with private sector entities and to explore innovative financing solutions and public-private financing modalities to promote burden sharing within international contributions. As the United States has stated previously, we urge UNICEF, as with all UN bodies and organizations, to remain focused on its founding mandate. Risk management ensures respect for our taxpayer dollars. The United States understands UNICEF's aid diversion mitigation strategies, which include beneficiary verification mechanisms, supplying quantities based on average consumption numbers, prevention clauses in partnership agreements, training for partners and staff, regular inventory reconciliations, and increasingly with post-distribution end-user monitoring. We hope these efforts will continue in order to safeguard our contributions. Regarding end-user monitoring to prevent aid diversion, could you say more about UNICEF's pilot of digitized real-time last-mile information systems? How long has this system been in use, and will it become a payment tool for mitigation— a permanent tool for mitigation? The United States hopes UNICEF's risk appetite approach approach provides tools to safely face risks required to deliver results for children. The report cites mid-2025 as a target for the upgrade of certain risk management tools. As we're in June, could you provide a status update, please? And thank you very much.

I thank distinguished representative of the United States. I now invite the Secretariat

Thank you, Mr.

President, and thank you for all the comments and questions. To start with Sweden, who asked about the risk dialogues we want to have at different levels of the organization, we would be very interested to any examples you have also. I think there are risk dialogues that we have with donors and with Member States Executive Board here at the strategic level, or to share risks on the— and risk dialogues that we have at the country level internally between our internal staff, how to balance the risks right, but also with our implementing partners to make sure that we share risks with them as well and we don't just transfer risks. This starts with having a good understanding of what the different risks are and how they balance each out. So it's not a risk-by-risk discussion, but understanding what the pros and cons are, what the trade-offs are between certain risks and rewards. And so this is where we're focusing much more on a culture of conversations and setting up governance mechanisms at different levels in the organization where we can have those conversations, and we have already several examples in-country, for example, where we have risk committees, also, in some cases, shared risk committees as part of the UN country team with other agencies, where we can have these discussions and have these conversations about shared risk. What is important is that we try to create, both in UNICEF internally, a way to make sure that the discussions that are happening at country level can actually be escalated up when it is a more broader issue, and equally within you donors, we have alignment between what conversations and what risks are being accepted or not at the country level and globally. So this is something that's a work in progress, but I'm very interested to work with all of you to understand what would be the best examples and how to make this work in practice. Some questions about the resources to manage risks. Equally to the discussions earlier on the oversight officers, this is a constant balance and a difficult situation right now. We do try to think about how we can make it very effective and work together across global, regional, and country level to effectively manage risk and leverage all the different capacities that are available. Risk management is really cross-cutting, and there is many kind of specific risk expertise in different areas of the organization, and so one goal of our enterprise-wide risk management program is to actually bring those together, to have it less siloed, and therefore also try to find synergies and try to do more impactful and effective risk management, but in a more harmonized and simpler way, including less focus on compliance, on tools and reporting, bureaucracy that's not necessarily always managing the risk, but really understanding what are the key risks and where do we really need to focus and make all these activities very action-oriented and very risk-based and focusing on the highest risks. This is where we're trying to get that balance right. We do want to accelerate the risk journey. By nature, Putting in place good risk management across an organization is a multi-year or actually never-ending journey. So, we continue to do our best, but it is a very challenging situation right now indeed. With that, maybe Hanan wants to add, or back to you, Mr. President.

I thank the Secretariat for the remarks.

Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you, Mr. President.

Distinguished colleagues, if no other delegation wishes to take the floor at this time, we shall consider this item later on under Agenda Item 20, when we consider the draft decision of this session. Distinguished delegates, the next item for our consideration will be Agenda Item 15, Progress on the Consideration of the Review of Governance and Oversight of of the Executive Boards of UNDP/UNFPA/UNOPS, UNICEF, and UN Women by the Joint Inspection Unit. The Executive Board will be provided with an update on the implementation of its Decision 2024/15 on the assessment of how the Executive Board executes its governance and oversight functions. I now invite Ms. Mio Akita from the Permanent Mission of Japan to the United Nations, who is a member of the Joint Inspection Unit Working Group, who will share a statement on behalf of the co-chairs of the Working Group. Madam, you have the floor.

Thank you, Mr. President. Mr. President, Excellencies, distinguished colleagues, in the absence of the JIU Joint Working Group co-chairs, Mr. Tony Oweke from the Permanent Mission of the Republic of Kenya and Mr. Lars Becker from the Permanent Mission of Germany, I'd like to deliver the co-chair statement on their behalf. On behalf of both co-chairs, let me start by expressing our sincere appreciation to the 15 members of the Joint Working Group for their active engagement. Thoughtful contributions, and the spirit of collaboration that has marked our initial phase of work. This process has come a long way in just one year. What began with a forward-looking recommendation by the Joint Inspection Unit to establish an ad hoc committee to examine their findings was taken up decisively by the Executive Boards at the 2024 Annual Session. Despite some initial challenges, the boards moved quickly. By the following session, terms of reference were adopted and 15 members nominated. This sent a strong signal of commitment to strengthening governance and oversight. At our first informal meeting on 7th May, we were encouraged by the high level of engagement. Members brought extensive board experience and a shared recognition of the importance of our task. This depth of expertise across all 3 boards is a tremendous asset as we take forward the JIU recommendations. As co-chairs, we are pleased to present the group's agreed working methods and roadmap developed in line with the Terms of Reference adopted earlier this year. These foundational documents lay out how we intend to organize our work, ensuring structured, inclusive, as well as a result and consensus-oriented approach. We also already reconnected with the JIU inspector and revisited the recommendations, this time in light of new development. A full year has passed since the report's publication, and much has changed. The financial pressures are more acute, and broader institutional reforms may now be more feasible than they were just months ago. Our roadmap sets out key phases of our work. One, mapping and categorization of the GIU recommendations. 2, identification of priority areas for early action. 3, in-depth review of more complex or structural recommendations. To operationalize this, we have agreed on thematic work streams and subgroups which will allow us to cluster recommendations by topic. While a thorough assessment of all GIU recommendations remain essential, the group also recognizes the need to harness current momentum. There was agreement that it would be premature to present quick wins at the upcoming sessions, but we see values in identifying non-controversial and easily implementable proposals. These can help build trust and demonstrate early progress. The next meeting of the working group is already scheduled for mid-July, where we will finalize the clustering of work streams and begin our substantive review. While the terms of reference foresee decisions at each executive board session, the group agreed to take a case-by-case approach, ensuring that decision-making is meaningful and aligned, aligned with our pace of work. To preserve transparency, we will continue providing regular updates, including through an information item in the co-chairs' report. Let us also recall this process is time-bound. With less than 2 years ahead of us, we must strike the right balance between efficiency and diligence. As co-chairs, we remain committed to facilitating a process that is agile, inclusive, and member-state-driven, one that delivers actionable, high-quality outcomes for the boards. Finally, while our formal mandate does not extend to broader reform efforts, we acknowledge that there are potential synergies. In time, this group may provide valuable governance insights that help inform or support those broader conversations. We will continue to listen carefully and remain open to how these linkages might evolve. We look forward to continuing this important work with all of you, and we thank you once again for your trust, engagement, and support. Thank you.

I thank Ms. Sakita for the statement and now open the floor for discussion. I see distinguished Permanent Representative of Eritrea, Vice President of the Executive Board. You have the floor.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Distinguished members of the Executive Board, I deliver this statement on behalf of Austria, Australia, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, Czechia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Georgia, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, Japan and the Kingdom of the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Moldova, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and my own country, Eritrea. We welcome the first update of the Joint Working Group following its establishment this year, first regular session, and express our full support for the process. The Working Group brings together broad and equal regional representation and is tasked with a clear mandate. We recommend— we commend the Working Group on the successful conclusion of its initial meetings and the rapid development of its working methods with clearly defined phases and thematic work streams. We would also like to sincerely thank all 15 member states participating in the group and emphasize the constructive and trustful collaboration that has already characterized its early work. This spirit of cooperation will be essential as the process moves forward. The presentation of the roadmap working methods in the Annual Session marks a crucial step forward in strengthening governance and oversight within the Executive Boards of UNDP, UNFPA, UNOPS, UNICEF, and UN Women. A key objective must be to streamline board proceedings in a way that facilitates more strategic deliberations and timely decision-making. Decision-making. We remain fully committed to supporting a transparent, inclusive, and result-oriented process that contributes to more effective and harmonized governance structures across the executive boards. We particularly welcome the phased and flexible approach outlined in the roadmap. It reflects a careful balance between ambition and pragmatism and allows the group to move forward even when not all details have yet to be finalized. Importantly, the approach enables the identification and early implementation of easy action— easily actionable recommendations which can help maintain momentum by demonstrating progress. As executive boards, we also have a responsibility for ensuring accountability within the system. It's our duty to implement recommendations in a timely and appropriate manner. In this context, we note that some of the recommendations require preliminary stocktaking before any meaningful implementation can begin. Such work should not fall to the Working Group members alone, but should be supported by relevant actors within the organizations, such as units responsible for governance and oversight, or the secretariats. One example is Recommendation 6, which refers to the role and functioning of executive board secretariats. As the Inspector noted, their roles are often described in general terms in the Rules of Procedure, with no consolidated record of the actual responsibilities or functions carried out. A clear mapping of the existing practices based on the report's findings would be an important prerequisite for establishing harmonized terms of reference for all Board Secretariats. We therefore encourage the Working Group to initiate the necessary steps in order to avoid delays in implementing the recommendations. We would also like to stressed the importance of maintaining an adaptive approach throughout the process. The roadmap, rightly conceived as a living document, should be regularly updated based on progress, feedback, and lessons learned. The process should also consider, as appropriate, parallel reform efforts, including the UNAT Agenda, which may offer valuable perspectives for governance and oversight reforms. We reiterate our strong support for the joint initiative. We look forward to continued engagements to promote a more coherent, efficient, accountable, and fit-for-purpose governance system across the executive boards. I thank you.

I thank distinguished Permanent Representative of Eritrea. Thank you, Andrea. And I now would like to go back to Ms. Sakita for her— some reflections, please.

Thank you, Mr. President. Excellencies, distinguished colleagues, thank you once again for your kind support as well as for your thoughtful comments and questions. We have taken careful note of the points raised and we will ensure that your feedback is reflected interested in our ongoing deliberations. Thank you once again for your engagement.

I thank Ms. Sakita for her remarks. If no other delegation wishes to take the floor at this time, we shall conclude our consideration of this agenda item. Distinguished delegates, as a final item on the agenda for this morning's meeting, I would I would like to briefly resume the discussions under Agenda Item 3, the Annual Report for 2024 of the Executive Director of UNICEF. As you recall, yesterday morning we heard under that item the presentation of the UNICEF report on the recommendation of the Joint Inspection Unit contained in Document E/ICEF/ 2025/14, which summarizes the UNICEF response to recommendations addressed to the organization contained in reports and notes issued by the Joint Inspection Unit from January through December 2024. Ms. Carolina Fernandez Opaso, Chair and Inspector of the Joint Inspection Unit, who was unable to be with us yesterday, has the joint meeting and would like to make a statement from the Joint Inspection Unit on the report. Madam, you have the floor.

Chair, Executive Director, members of the Executive Board, I'd like to thank the Board and the Secretariat for making it possible for me to deliver this statement today. An unfortunate miscommunication led to me missing my slot yesterday, but hopefully, even though it here, out of sync at the moment, after management has provided its response and the Working Group has given its update. This statement provides useful information to the Board. The UNICEF report that you had before you yesterday summarized 6 reports that the Unit released during 2024 and the status of the implementation of the Open JIU recommendations issued prior to 19— to 2024. The acceptance and implementation of the Unit's recommendations are key indicators of the relevance, significance, and the quality of our reports. I am pleased to note that UNICEF is among the participating organizations with the highest rates of acceptance and implementation. Turning to the Unit's work plan and delivery In 2024, the JIU released 6 products: 3 reports on system-wide reviews, 1 report on management and administration of a single organization, and 2 notes. For 2025, the unit selected for its program of work the following topics: policies and practices for determination of the rates of program support costs, strategic planning function, recruitment policies and practices, travel arrangements, data governance frameworks, the centralized evaluation function, and the management and administration of UNESCO. In 2026, the Unit will follow a similar procedure by consulting with participating organizations, which has just initiated in May. The Unit, in this case, has made a special request to participating organizations to make this an opportunity to contribute to the Secretary-General's UN80 initiative by proposing topics that align with the initiative's goals, particularly those aimed at enhancing efficiency, providing current arrangements— improving, not providing, I'm sorry. Improving current arrangements, and considering structural changes and program realignment across the United Nations system. Several organizations in the United Nations— the United Nations organizations are dealing with the effects of severe funding constraints. It is a concern that these constraints may have an impact on the work of accountability and oversight entities. agencies in general. I would like to point out, though, that in times of financial austerity, the need for robust, independent, and effective accountability and oversight mechanisms becomes even more critical. In response to these challenges, and as part of the commitment to operational efficiency, the unit is streamlining its outputs, making them more concise without compromising the depth and value of the information our stakeholders rely on. I would like to thank the members of the Executive Board for the attention to the work of the JIU. On behalf of the Unit, I also extend our appreciation to the UNICEF Secretariat for their continued collaboration and cooperation in support of our reviews. Thank you.

I thank Ms. Fernandez Opaso for her remarks and now open the floor for discussion. If no delegation wishes to take the floor at this time, we shall conclude our consideration of this agenda item. I would like to give the floor to the Secretary-General. Secretary for some announcement he would like to make. Please, Andrés.

Yes, thank you, Mr. President. Just to remind delegates that immediately following this session, we will have our lunchtime informal consultations on draft decisions being considered for adoption, and that's going to be in Conference Room 2 from 1:15 to 2:45 PM. Thank you very much, Mr. President.

Thank you, Mr. Secretary. Before we adjourn the morning, I believe that we have some special guests with us who would like to make an announcement. I now invite Arianna and Alexander to take our seats.

Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Alexander, and this is my friend Ariana. We're here today because we believe something really important is missing for many children around the world, something as simple but yet powerful as play.

Thank you.

Play isn't just fun, it helps us grow, learn, and feel safe. It's how we make friends, figure things out, and express who we are.

That's why we love to invite you to join us for the International Day of Play event happening right after this session at 1:15 PM.

It is conference room It's in Conference Room 6, and it won't take long. We promise it'll be fun and inspiring.

Plus—

We know you've been in meetings all day, so there's a packed lunch waiting for you on your way to Conference Room 6.

So come join us. See what play means to children around the world and why it deserves a place in every child's life.

We hope to see you there. Thank you so much for listening.

I thank Arianna and Alexander for their announcement, and their presence is a powerful reminder who we serve at UNICEF and our accountability before children. So with that, please join us as Alexander and Arianna invited us to to celebrate the International Day of Play right after this meeting. The meeting is adjourned.