Good morning. I am pleased to be here for this Second Regular Session of the Executive Board in my capacity as Acting Executive Director. Before I begin my remarks, we would like to share a video highlighting the devastating toll of gender-based violence in humanitarian crises and why UNFPA’s leadership on protection and response to GBV is so critical for women and girls. [Video plays.]
Estimado Señor Presidente,
Distinguished Members of the Executive Board,
Chers collègues, chers amis,
I thank the Board for your support and guidance and for the extensive consultations that have resulted in the UNFPA Strategic Plan 2026-2029 and associated Integrated Budget before you this session.
We meet at an extraordinary moment for the UN – called upon by so many governments and communities to do so much, with resources not commensurate with the task at hand.
This moment requires bold thinking, flexible planning, and a sharp focus on results and accountability.
Before you is a Strategic Plan that meets that moment, and I count on you to endorse it at this session.
The new Strategic Plan reaffirms UNFPA’s critical ICPD mandate and our normative role. It reflects a focused, dedicated organization with a unique comparative advantage as a public health and population agency.
UNFPA very uniquely combines technical expertise, operational savoir faire and human rights, working across the humanitarian-development-peace continuum in more than 150 countries, with a clear focus on women and girls throughout their life course.
Today, UNFPA is a recognized leader in sexual and reproductive health; population data, census and statistics; logistics and delivery of reproductive commodities at scale; humanitarian action on sexual and reproductive health and rights and gender-based violence; and youth leadership development, including youth, peace and security.
We are an organization that listens, and we have heard Member States’ calls for support in understanding and adapting to demographic shifts.
UNFPA is a nimble, resilient, innovative organization that has been well ahead of the curve in foreseeing and adapting to geopolitical and funding shifts, as well as the needs of the communities we serve. This has meant taking some difficult decisions, including the recent relocation of roughly one quarter of our headquarters personnel to Nairobi. We continue to review our business model to ensure that UNFPA is future-fit, in keeping with the UN80 focus on efficiency, effectiveness and relevance.
UNFPA is an organization that delivers. The results speak for themselves. They speak to why multilateralism is so important. It works – thanks to you all.
Maternal mortality has declined by 40 per cent globally since 2000.
As the world’s largest provider of donated contraceptives, UNFPA’s investments in family planning have increased voluntary contraceptive use and reduced adolescent pregnancy.
Increasingly, countries are leading the charge, with strategic support from the UNFPA Supplies Partnership. Partner countries have increased their contraceptive spending fivefold since 2020, demonstrating that the Partnership’s innovative financing mechanisms create genuine country ownership and sustainable impact. Of course, all of this is only possible thanks to the core resources that underpin everything we do.
In 2024 alone, the UNFPA Supplies Partnership prevented nearly 10 million unintended pregnancies and more than 200,000 maternal and newborn deaths and generated US$708 million in direct healthcare cost savings.
UNFPA also continues to deliver as a leader in the humanitarian sector, where the need for our services remains important. In 2024, UNFPA-supported programmes reached over 10 million people with sexual and reproductive health services and more than 3.6 million with gender-based violence protection in 59 crisis-affected countries.
Unfortunately, UNFPA’s 2025 humanitarian appeal of US$1.2 billion to provide services for over 43 million people in 50 countries is only 30 percent funded. In response, the appeal was recently reduced by $200 million, targeting 1.2 million fewer people and prioritizing the most urgent, life-saving work. Going forward, we will continue to face growing humanitarian needs without the support of a leading humanitarian donor.
Through the humanitarian reset, we count on the Board to help safeguard the important work we have done collectively to prioritize life-saving gender-based violence and sexual and reproductive health services in every crisis response.
Mr. President,
At a time of shifting global priorities, reduced funding, growing humanitarian and development needs, and evolving expectations from our partners, UNFPA is rising to the occasion as a change leader within the United Nations system.
As part of UN80, we stand ready to do more both in our programme areas and on system-wide efficiencies, including taking advantage of any opportunity to outsource our back-office operations.
UNFPA is embracing artificial intelligence tools throughout the organization to revolutionize knowledge management, improve efficiency, boost productivity and accelerate impact.
We are determined to be drivers of our own destiny, innovating, evolving and enhancing our capacity to best serve women and girls and deliver on the ambitions of our new Strategic Plan.
This is the impetus behind UNFPA’s ongoing business model review – ensuring that we are rightly configured at all levels and a leader on efficiencies as the UN80 moment demands.
For Headquarters, this includes a careful and consultative assessment to explore whether additional HQ functions might be better positioned elsewhere. As with the move to Nairobi, the objective is ensuring better service provision, improving efficiency and reducing costs. Delocalization will also further enhance integration between our humanitarian and development work.
We are likewise exploring whether the current setup of six regional offices remains the best structure for us in a reduced funding environment. The focus remains on strengthening support to country offices and ensuring the complementarity of work across HQ and regional offices.
The third priority area for review is UNFPA’s country presence. Are we optimally configured to meet evolving needs within a reduced resource envelope? We are therefore assessing if and how we can adopt different types of presence in different settings. Our aim is to deliver high-impact programming where needs are greatest, in alignment with national priorities and focusing on those at greatest risk of being left behind.
As always, the Staff Council is engaged at every step of the review, and we will consult closely with the Board throughout this process.
Mr. President,
UNFPA values such consultations with Member States and this Executive Board. We welcome a diversity of perspectives and opinions and strive to achieve balance.
We have listened closely to you, and we are fully confident that the direction articulated in the Strategic Plan 2026-2029 is the right path at the right time to accelerate progress for women, girls and young people.
In a time of disruption and uncertainty, the new Strategic Plan, the last of three consecutive plans leading up to 2030, offers both continuity and confidence. It responds to rising threats while unlocking opportunities to adapt, innovate, and lead.
Our commitment to sexual and reproductive health, rights and choices remains as firm and fundamental to our work and SDG achievement as ever. Our commitment as a leadership team is unwavering.
The focus remains on the attainment of three transformative results – ending all unmet need for family planning, ending all preventable maternal deaths and ending all gender-based violence and harmful practices. We have also introduced a fourth outcome on adapting to demographic change. Again, this responds to Member State demand for support on issues such as demographic transitions, low fertility, population ageing, and migration.
UNFPA is uniquely equipped to provide this support. Harnessing data and evidence, we support governments to develop policies and programmes that build demographic resilience, while upholding individual rights and choices.
I wish to emphasize that the Strategic Plan is operationalized in line with national policies and national laws, and firmly grounded in national ownership, as expressed in the Country Programme Documents. As such, we look forward to the adoption of the 15 CPDs before the Board this session.
Mr. President,
As previously discussed with the Board, UNFPA planned and budgeted conservatively in anticipation of the current funding constraints to protect our programming.
Moreover, we successfully diversified funding via international financial institutions, foundations, the private sector and individual giving, leading to record income last year of nearly US$1.7 billion. UNFPA’s work on innovative financing is making significant progress, which we showcased at the Financing for Development Summit in Seville. Under the new Strategic Plan, UNFPA will strengthen our efforts to leverage sustainable financing and investment, including domestic financing, to accelerate progress on our mandate and the Sustainable Development Goals.
You will note that the income targets in the new Integrated Budget are conservative, 16 percent below the mid-term review targets. This reflects the prudent, realistic approach UNFPA has taken in response to cuts from some major partners and concerns around declining official development assistance.
UNFPA welcomes the Advisory Committee for Administrative and Budgetary Questions report. I am pleased to note that most of the reporting recommended is already taking place, and we will continue our transparent engagement with the Board.
UNFPA is determined to make a difference where it is needed most, which is why more than 88 per cent of resources in the Integrated Budget will be directed to the field.
UNFPA’s commitment to leaving no one behind remains firm, something I reiterated last week at TICAD, just as my colleagues did at the recent LLDC conference and as we continue to do in our engagement with SIDS and all Member States.
While UNFPA mobilized significant resources in 2024, much of the growth came in earmarked funding, particularly for humanitarian crises. Increased earmarking increases administrative burdens and fragmentation, impacting our ability to deliver effectively.
Core funding is at its lowest since 2019 and is projected to decline further in the new Integrated Budget. UN pooled funding, the second largest single source of funding to UNFPA, has also shown a declining trend.
We continue to advocate strongly for core resources, which allow UNFPA to sustain our operational capacity at country, regional and headquarters levels so that we can continue to support rights-based programming that improves the lives of women and young people. We can only implement the Strategic Plan if we are resourced adequately, and core resources are the bedrock of all our work. We count on the Board’s support to ensure that we are well financed and equipped to continue to deliver the results you, distinguished Member States, and communities expect of us.
Core funding allows us to plan long-term and respond flexibly and effectively wherever needs arise, from development settings to acute and sudden-onset crises. It also allows UNFPA to maintain robust oversight structures. Oversight, accountability and risk management remain top priorities of the organization, as reflected in the proposed budget allocations for management and independent oversight and assurance activities.
All of this points to why the flexible, quality funding commitments made in the Funding Compact 2.0 are essential.
Mr. President,
This is the last Executive Board session for two valued UNFPA leaders – Susana Sottoli, Regional Director for Latin America and the Caribbean, and Ian McFarlane, Director of the Division for External Relations. On behalf of UNFPA, I thank Susana and Ian for their dedicated service and wish them both well in their future endeavours.
Mr. President, Excellencies,
The stakes are high for the communities UNFPA serves on your behalf. As language is debated, let us hold fast to the fundamental values and beliefs that underpin our common objectives. Let us agree that women and adolescent girls deserve our steadfast support. The right to safe, intended motherhood; to live free from violence; to chart one’s own future — it’s fundamental.
UNFPA is committed to working with partners to protect the gains made in recent decades and to seize every opportunity to accelerate progress. With the Board’s active engagement, we have laid out our strategic vision for doing so over the next four years. We count on your support for this vision and your endorsement of our Strategic Plan and Integrated Budget.
More importantly, the women, girls and young people UNFPA serves count on your support. When they thrive and succeed, we all will.
Je vous remercie de votre aimable attention.
