EU Statement – UNICEF Executive Board: Update on UNICEF Humanitarian Action

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Mr. President, Madam Executive Director, Director Elmi, 

I am speaking on behalf of the European Union as a donor.

We congratulate UNICEF and its staff for their humanitarian achievements in 2025, in a context where acute humanitarian needs, difficulties of access and violations of international humanitarian law were accompanied by a sharp decline in global funding and a significant internal restructuration within UNICEF. We understand that the humanitarian system is under unprecedented strain, and public funding alone will not meet the scale of the crisis. Nevertheless, the EU has taken action, and has committed an initial €1.9 billion in humanitarian aid for 2026.

We welcome UNICEF’s engagement in UN80 and the Humanitarian Reset, which is key to improving efficiency and impact across the humanitarian system. We underline in particular the importance of strengthening global humanitarian supply chains, where UNICEF plays a central role alongside WFP. Effective, coordinated and cost-efficient supply chains are critical to reaching children in need. In this regard, we recall the EU’s leadership in convening partners at the Humanitarian Leadership Group on Supply Chain Final Conference in December last year.

We understand that due to financial constraints, UNICEF had to reprioritise its humanitarian interventions and focus on life-saving operations, which led the organisation to reach fewer children and families, and we are conscious of the complexity of this exercise. We appreciate that UNICEF used a country-led approach to prioritize interventions for its appeals.

We welcome that UNICEF kept its nutrition interventions a life-saving priority and that it largely maintained its targets for access of children and women to healthcare in UNICEF-supported facilities. However, we note with concern the reduction in targets for sectors as important as child protection or education, with a specific impact on girls. We see a very sharp decrease in UNICEF’s core indicator for education in emergencies and while we do support efforts to strengthen national education systems, we encourage UNICEF to keep education at the centre of its intervention and advocacy. We would like to hear how UNICEF intends to approach this in 2026 and whether it can guarantee us that education in emergencies will stay a priority.

We are also concerned to see the sharp reduction in protection from sexual abuse and exploitation, prevention and response to gender-based violence and MHPSS, especially in certain geographic areas. We count on UNICEF’s continued commitment to these priorities and we welcome its work on integrated programming to address GBV in emergencies through integration with other programmes, notably nutrition, which can increase efficiency and cost-effectiveness. 

We regret to see that reprioritisation led UNICEF in some cases to deprioritize longer-term or climate-friendly solutions, for example in the WASH response. We support and encourage UNICEF’s use of its dual mandate to bridge as much as possible the gaps caused by this hyper-prioritisation and look forward to more details on this. 

Looking ahead, we hope that the bold reforms currently implemented will ensure that UNICEF is able to uphold its mandate despite funding constraints. We count on UNICEF to keep advocating for the protection of girls and boys, and we encourage you to continue building strong partnerships to address root causes and promote the humanitarian, development and peace nexus.   

Allow me to end with great appreciation of UNICEF and all its staff, and underline the full support of the EU to UNICEF and its humanitarian programming. 

Thank you.