Annual Session of the UNICEF Executive Board: Canada National Opening Statement

Statement by Ambassador Michael Grant, Deputy Permanent Representative of Canada to the United Nations

New York, June 13, 2017

Thank you, Mr. President.

Let me begin by saying that UNICEF continues to be one of Canada’s most important multilateral partners, and we highly value the organization’s focus on protecting and promoting the rights of all children around the globe.

Canada was pleased to participate in the Executive Board field visit to Egypt and Lebanon earlier this year to experience first-hand UNICEF’s important work at the country level in the areas of health, education, water and sanitation, and child protection.

Canada would like to commend UNICEF on its invaluable contribution towards global polio eradication efforts. UNICEF’s polio program is not only a compelling results story, bringing the world closer than ever to polio eradication through innovative approaches to reach every child, but also an excellent example of how UNICEF is improving the way it works with other key multilateral organizations.

UNICEF plays a central role in advancing implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, and also has a key role to play in the Secretary-General’s UN reform agenda – both of which are key priorities for Canada.

On June 9^th, Canada launched its new Feminist International Assistance Policy, which prioritizes gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls as the most effective way to reduce poverty and build a more inclusive, peaceful and prosperous world. This new approach will enable Canada to provide more integrated and responsive assistance, invest in innovation and research, deliver better reporting on results, develop more effective partnerships, and concentrate our assistance in the parts of the world where we can make the greatest difference in reducing poverty and inequality, particularly for women and girls.

This is a big year for UNICEF and the Funds and Programs. UNICEF is being asked to develop a clear and concise strategic framework that: 1) reflects the many bold international and UN commitments of recent years; 2) addresses the shortcomings and challenges of previous frameworks; and 3) enables UNICEF to more effectively monitor, evaluate and report on its development impact in the years to come.

UNICEF and the UN as a whole are being challenged to take bolder action, to break down siloes, to establish innovative partnerships, to improve coordination across the multilateral system, and ultimately to be more effective in achieving development results.

In the new strategic framework, Canada will be looking particularly at how UNICEF plans to strengthen its capacity to undertake sound gender-based analysis in all areas and at all levels. We challenge you to be more ambitious in addressing shortcomings in gender mainstreaming. By investing more resources in this important area, UNICEF will gain results dividends in the long run.

We will also be looking for concrete examples of how UNICEF will work collaboratively with other organizations. We challenge you to find bold and innovative approaches that will strengthen UN system coherence and coordination, help bridge the humanitarian-development divide; and improve transparency and accountability of results in line with the QCPR.

We ask you to find practical and measureable solutions upon which you can report regularly to member states and the global community. This means revising the current draft of the Strategic Plan and Results Framework to include results statements at the appropriate level with appropriate indicators, and a logical theory of change from output to outcome.  This also means improving data collection methods in order to be able to demonstrate UNICEF’s story of both attribution and contribution to achieving the SDGs.

Mr. President, Canada continues to strongly call for more discussions on UNICEF’s work on humanitarian assistance at the Executive Board. These discussions are largely absent even though humanitarian assistance now represents almost half of UNICEF’s budget. Important evaluations on the humanitarian work of UNICEF, including UNICEF’s response to the ebola crisis, should be part of future Board agendas. This is first and foremost an issue of transparency and accountability, and we will continue to work with members of the board and UNICEF to seek improvements in this regard.

These are challenging tasks, but we are confident that UNICEF is up to this challenge, and will deliver on this mandate to member states.

We look forward to helping move the strategic planning process forward, and to contributing to the effective governance of this Board.

Thank you Mr. President.