Check against delivery

Chair, Madam Executive Director, 

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

In this exceptionally difficult context for the aid community and the populations it is meant to serve, I would like to reiterate our support to UNICEF and our appreciation for the unwavering commitment of its staff and partners in the field. With the multiplication of conflicts accompanied by unprecedented violence against children and blatant violations of International Humanitarian Law, it is of paramount importance that UNICEF can continue ensuring basic services for children and protecting their rights, including for children on the move. 

There is no life-saving without protection. It is at the core of the humanitarian mandate and crucial for sustaining human life and dignity amidst conflicts, fragile settings and disasters. We invite UNICEF to ensure safe and inclusive programming and uphold quality standards through protection mainstreaming, as well as to maintain dedicated protection expertise and targeted protection programming. Also, we call for UNICEF to safeguard and pursue the Centrality of Protection in all its interventions as critical to protect people in crisis and reduce the need for humanitarian assistance. Investing in protection is an operational and moral imperative and should be upheld as a collective priority in the ongoing prioritization and rationalization processes.

Considering the very challenging funding environment, we support the measures taken by UNICEF to improve the organisation’s cost-efficiency and your engagement in broader reform efforts. In light of that, we recommend that UNICEF continue actively exploring all possible funding options. We also encourage you to continue building qualitative partnerships with local actors in the field. 

We take note of the results achieved in 2024 in all sectors concerned by the Strategic Plan. With regard to nutrition in particular, we welcome UNICEF’s cooperation with WFP through the Joint Action to Stop Wasting as well as UNICEF’s support of the No Time to Waste initiative through the Child Nutrition Fund. In view of the current funding situation and the extent of needs, it will be all the more important to have a well-coordinated approach to nutrition. This starts with having a clear picture of the global needs at every moment, as well as shared digitalised lists of beneficiaries between agencies, and making sure that monitoring of deliveries until the end users can be ensured in order to minimise losses. In the current context of worrying pipeline breaks for RUTF in several countries, we would appreciate getting regular and updated information on where the most urgent needs are and how UNICEF and donors can respond as best as possible. We also encourage UNICEF to pursue efforts to boost local production of therapeutic foods and would be interested to hear whether progress has been achieved in this respect. 

We strongly support UNICEF’s efforts to protect children from all forms of abuse and exploitation and to strengthen child protection systems, in a context where most of the child protection-related Sustainable Development Goals are off track and where violence against children, including adolescent girls and children with disabilities, as well as violence against their mothers, is only increasing. We also welcome UNICEF’s new whole-of-route approach to cross-border coordination and programming to ensure protection and care for children on the move.

Regarding the Gender Action Plan 2022–2025, we welcome the progress made and encourage UNICEF to sustain and scale up its actions as persistent gaps remain, notably in access to education and healthcare for girls.

Violence against women and girls remains at an unacceptable level and calls for increased efforts, especially in fragile settings where it is even more prevalent. We welcome that gender-based violence response, prevention and risk mitigation programming in emergencies has reached an increasing number of beneficiaries and that in 2024, 43 per cent of countries achieved full compliance in implementing UNICEF’s minimum set of gender-based violence risk mitigation actions. We support UNICEF in this important field of action and we also commend UNICEF’s collaboration with UNFPA to end Female Genital Mutilation. We want to recall that the EU remains strongly committed to preventing, fighting and responding to gender-based violence in all its forms, and to reaching gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls.

We also welcome UNICEF's ongoing efforts in preventing, protecting from and responding to Sexual Exploitation and Abuse (SEA), in particular of children, and Sexual Harassment (SH), and its transparent communications around this important issue. We strongly encourage UNICEF to continue and further its efforts to enhance its PSEA-H policies and resources to tackle SEA and SH within UNICEF and across UN operations to uphold the rights of all victims-survivors. 

We look forward to the next Strategic Plan and its ambitious objectives for the well-being of children. With over USD 550 million financial support over the last two years, the EU has been and will continue to be a major donor to UNICEF. We support UNICEF’s intention to strengthen coordination across its humanitarian, development and peacebuilding work. 

Thank you.