Statement of Thoraya Ahmed Obaid, First Regular Session UNDP/UNFPA Executive Board

Mr. President,
Distinguished delegates,
Colleagues and friends,

Haiti, Humanitarian response and women’s needs

Normally I begin the first regular session by wishing all of you a Happy New Year. But this year, while I wish you all the best, I would like to begin by extending solidarity, compassion and sympathy to the Government and people of Haiti and others who are suffering from the devastating earthquake. Upon returning from Haiti, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon expressed his great admiration for the resilience of the Haitian people in the midst of this catastrophe.

Though we are grateful that all UNFPA staff have been accounted for, I extend our solidarity with colleagues in our sister organizations who have lost some of their staff and express condolences to their families. What touches one organization touches all of us. In spite of the hardship conditions in which they are operating, the brave United Nations colleagues are working hard to deliver assistance to the people of Haiti.

This is a massive disaster that requires a massive response on many fronts.

It is estimated that one quarter of the impacted population are women of childbearing age, with thousands of pregnant women among them. Already before the crisis, Haiti had the highest rate of maternal death in the region——and now, after the earthquake, with limited or no access to health facilities, the risks faced by pregnant women are even higher. I saw in the media the story of a woman giving birth under challenging conditions. To my knowledge it was the only story about the needs of women among all the continuous flow of news on Haiti.

I keep on getting a mental picture of women amidst the rubble not knowing what to do about their personal hygienic needs. I keep on asking myself, if I were in their place, and in the reproductive age, what would I do? Would I dare get up and walk to receive food with soiled clothes? Would I be able to access the necessary supplies to give me a minimum sense of dignity? Where would I go for that help?

Members of the Executive Board, I would like to remind you and all those around us that women have no choice as to what happens to them if they are pregnant, regardless of all hardships. They miscarry, or deliver their babies safely or unsafely, or they simply die as a result of complications. Women do deliver their babies during earthquakes, floods, tsunami, conflicts and war. But that very act of bringing a new life amidst destruction is totally invisible in the initial humanitarian response. Reproductive health care should be fully integrated into humanitarian response as a basic essential to the very life and dignity of affected women.

As part of a coordinated UN response, UNFPA is working through partners in sending reproductive health supplies, to meet the special needs of women, to prevent women from dying in pregnancy, to ensure safe deliveries and to provide them with basic hygienic supplies so they can live even among the rubble.

Welcoming new Board members

Mr. President,

My colleagues and I extend a warm welcome to you, Ambassador John Ashe, as the new President, and to the other members of the Bureau—Ambassador Atoki Ileka of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ms. Claude Lemieux of Canada, Mr. Muhammad Ayub of Pakistan, and Mr. Farid Jafarov of Azerbaijan. We pledge our continued cooperation. And we thank Ambassador Mohammad Khazaee of the Islamic Republic of Iran and his Vice-Presidents for their excellent leadership over the past year.

ICPD@15 and forward

This year, 2010, marks the beginning of a new decade and it also marks the last year of my tenure as Executive Director of UNFPA. I look forward to working with all of you this year to register significant achievements in advancing the agenda of the International Conference on Population and Development.

This year, as we build on the ICPD 15-year review, I would like to thank all of you as Board members, Member States and all of our partners and colleagues worldwide for your support and engagement in commemorating ICPD15 and your leadership for this powerful agenda. The review reaffirmed the vision and relevance of the Cairo agenda as a foundation for human-centred development and the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals.

From last year’s commemorative event in the UN General Assembly to the regional and national reviews of implementation of the ICPD Programme of Action, from the NGO Forum in Berlin co-sponsored by the Government of Germany to the high-level meeting on maternal health that was co-sponsored by the Government of the Netherlands to the global parliamentary conference in Addis Ababa, to the most recent commemoration in the U.S. State Department, commitment to ICPD goals and principles was strengthened.

From parliamentarians to youth, from government officials to women’s groups, from faith-based organizations to global health and human rights advocates, there is greater awareness and determination to achieve universal access to reproductive health, including family planning; and to reduce high rates of maternal mortality and HIV infection and end violence against women.

There is strong evidence to show that HIV prevention is working and it remains a priority for an effective AIDS response. Since 2001, new HIV infections have dropped by 17 per cent and prevalence among young women attending antenatal clinics has been decreasing in several countries in southern Africa. Yet too many new infections continue to occur and I join UNAIDS Executive Director Michel Sidibé in calling for a prevention revolution. A revolution that is evidence-based, that targets prevention resources to vulnerable groups, that tackles gender discrimination and violence, and that builds on integrated approaches.

During the past few years, we have made progress integrating sexual and reproductive health and HIV—a vision that UNFPA has championed for many years. I look forward in further integrating reproductive health and rights and HIV interventions when I assume the Chair of the Committee of Cosponsoring Organizations of UNAIDS this April. We look forward to working closely with global health initiatives such as PEPFAR and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.

ICPD and the empowerment of women

Today, 15 years after Cairo, there is greater determination to advance women’s empowerment, to end violence against women and girls, and to join with men and boys in the struggle for gender equality. UNFPA applauds the launch of the Network of Men Leaders as part of the UN Secretary-General’s campaign Unite to End Violence against Women. We remain committed to women’s empowerment and implementation of Security Council resolutions 1325, 1820, 1888 and 1889 to ensure women’s participation in conflict resolution and peace-building and to stop sexual violence in countries affected by conflict.

With the commitment of Member States and the Secretary-General to achieve gender equality and empower women, the gender entity has a special significance. I would like to reinforce what UNDP Administrator Helen Clark said yesterday. The gender entity does not absolve any part of the UN system from their responsibilities on gender but should provide stronger coordination to achieve stronger results by all programmes across agencies.

Important to this effort is data that is disaggregated by gender. Today there is greater understanding of the need to analyse gender disaggregated data to devise and monitor plans, policies and programmes.

Mr. President,

Distinguished Delegates,

This year as we prepare for the 15th anniversary of the Beijing Platform for Action and the High-level meeting to review the Millennium Development Goals, we have an opportunity to advance the visionary and holistic ICPD agenda.

We would like to express appreciation to United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton who held a special event in Washington DC to commemorate ICPD@15; the support of the United States means much more than the value of the resources it is bringing to UNFPA though, of course, we do appreciate the funding too. She said, “What is it we will do between now and 2015? Remember what was expected of us. All governments will make access to reproductive healthcare and family planning services a basic right. We will dramatically reduce infant, child and maternal mortality. We will open the doors of education to all citizens, but especially to girls and women.”

As we start this new year, my colleagues in UNFPA and I are focused on fulfilling these goals. We are focused on using all ICPD@15 meeting outcomes, agreements and reports for intensified advocacy, policy dialogue, partnership-building, and technical assistance to ensure stronger development results. Based on the wealth of information generated, we are focused on supporting countries as they scale up successful interventions and fill existing gaps.

Here I would like to highlight Adding it Up, a report that we launched with the Guttmacher Institute on 3 December. The report finds that maternal deaths in developing countries could be slashed by 70 per cent and newborn deaths cut nearly in half if the world doubled investment in family planning to allow spacing and pregnancy-related care.

Population, development and the environment

Next year, the global population will reach 7 billion and by mid-century is projected to rise to more than 9 billion people on Earth. Almost all growth during the next four decades will take place in urban areas in developing countries, especially Africa and Asia, and the number of urban dwellers will nearly double. This will place tremendous pressures on demand for food, housing, water and sanitation. And given the world’s largest youth generation, there will be increasing need for education, healthcare and employment. At the same time, some countries are dealing with population decline and rapidly ageing populations, while others are bracing for changing patterns of migration. All of these trends present opportunities and challenges to development and demand a coherent policy response and a coordinated support to our member States.

This picture is further compounded by the unprecedented challenge of our changing climate. I believe there is growing understanding of the connections between population, development, and the environment. This was highlighted in our 2009 State of World Population report that was launched on the eve of the Copenhagen Conference, Facing a changing world: women, population and climate.

As we move forward, UNFPA is actively engaged in UN system-wide efforts to ensure a strategic and coherent response to support countries in their efforts to deal with climate change, particularly in the area of adaptation, where women can play a significant role, as well as through the analysis of population data and trends—particularly from censuses, and the mapping of vulnerabilities.

Priority areas for 2010

Mr. President,

UNFPA is committed to results and the implementation of our Strategic Plan from 2008 - 2013. To help ensure this, we will give special attention in 2010 to a number of areas.

The first is strengthening partnership to deliver better on maternal health in an integrated and comprehensive approach.

With last year’s high-level meeting on maternal health in Addis, the groundbreaking resolution on maternal mortality and morbidity that was adopted by the United Nations Human Rights Council and the upcoming Women Deliver II Conference in Washington D.C. this June, momentum is building.

As we move forward, UNFPA will continue to work with partners, especially the H4, UNICEF, the World Health Organization and the World Bank, and in collaboration with UNAIDS, to support national efforts and accelerate life-saving interventions for women and newborns. The H4 Partners are working to accelerate results in 25 high maternal mortality countries building up to 60 countries, including the six countries where half of all maternal deaths occur. These are Afghanistan, Bangladesh, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, India and Nigeria.

Together we continue to focus on strengthening health systems and health human resources, especially midwives, with strong supply systems that deliver life-saving equipment and drugs. We will focus on effective financing and affordability of services, and monitoring. We will ensure community engagement and promote equity and gender equality. And we will prioritize voluntary family planning as we work to expand access to sexual and reproductive health and strengthen integration with interventions for HIV and AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria.

The Maternal Health Thematic Fund, which began operations less than two years ago, is making rapid progress, supporting national efforts in 27 countries. The efforts focus on scaling up midwifery and emergency obstetric care and also supporting our Campaign to End Fistula, which is now active in over 45 countries.

The Global Programme to Enhance Reproductive Health Commodity Security is also making remarkable progress in its delivery. Special emphasis is being placed on simplifying processes to reduce the burden of reporting on countries, thereby lowering transaction costs. And our active support to the Reproductive Health Supplies Coalition will continue, in equal partnership with USAID and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Second, we are leveraging our comparative advantage on data for development. This year we will continue to focus on the 2010 round of censuses—some 63 countries and territories are expected to conduct censuses this year although we are concerned because some countries have announced delays due to financial constraints. The kind of support we are providing varies greatly from country to country, depending on their statistical capacity, and much of the support we provide increasingly comes through South-South and triangular cooperation. As an example, we have facilitated professionals from different National Statistical Offices such as Mozambique, Ethiopia, Botswana and other African countries as well as Indonesia to come to South Africa for study tours to further develop their own national capacity. And we have also assisted professionals from South Africa to conduct technical assistance missions to countries such as Afghanistan and Sudan. There are many more examples but the point is that we are supporting the sharing of knowledge, resources and expertise between countries to ensure a successful 2010 census round. We are also focusing on the monitoring of MDG5, especially target 5b on universal access to reproductive health, to better address gaps, expand services and promote equity.

Third, we are strengthening evaluation and results-based programme management. Following up on the Board’s decisions from the annual session last year, we are strengthening the evaluation function in UNFPA through increased dedicated capacity both at Headquarters and in regional offices, and the development of detailed evaluation guidance.

In 2010 we will roll out the guidelines, prepare and monitor implementation of a comprehensive evaluation work plan, and build evaluation capacity at organizational and national levels. We will also strengthen systems to improve evaluation planning and increase responsiveness to evaluation findings. Ultimately, we expect to increase the number, enhance the quality, and improve the use of our evaluations.

Fourth, we are committed to delivering on the managements results of the Strategic Plan & biennial support budget for 2010-2011. I am pleased to report that UNFPA continues to move to IPSAS adoption, working closely with UNDP, UNOPS, UNICEF and the UN system to be fully IPSAS compliant in 2012. By adopting changes to accounting policy, business practices and processes in 2010-2011, UNFPA will be able to provide supplemental disclosure information in the financial statements for 2010-11 and a seamless transition to full IPSAS adoption in 2012.

Fifth, we are committed to strengthening national and regional capacity and expertise to advance the ICPD agenda. In line with our strategic direction, we are progressively moving to provide support to countries through institutions at the national and regional levels in order to strengthen existing foundations of knowledge and experience and ensure sustainability of technical support.

And finally and of highest priority, we are focused on maintaining a safe, secure and motivated staff, the real asset of the Organization. Investing in staff security is not a luxury; it is a necessity. I join Helen Clark in calling on Member States to support this organizational priority.

UN Reform

Now let me turn to UN reform and system-wide coherence. UNFPA remains fully committed to and engaged in the UN reform process and is looking forward to a year of progress for the UN system and your guidance on the issue. In 2009 a great deal of progress was made in line with the 2007 resolution on the Triennial Comprehensive Policy Review. I was encouraged to see that the guidelines for the UN Development Assistance Framework (UNDAF) have been shortened from over 80 pages to 15 and signed off on by all agencies funds and programmes. Work on harmonized business practices is also moving forward and the Resident Coordinator system is progressively being strengthened. We also look forward to the evaluation of the Delivering as One Pilots to see what additional insights this will bring. This is particularly critical as we expect to support over 40 UNDAF roll-out countries this year, a good number of which have chosen to pursue the One Programme approach.

Reorganization

Mr. President,

UNFPA remains committed to being a field-focused and results-oriented organization and I would like to update you on our reorganization.

I am happy to report that the Regional Offices for Africa, and Latin America and the Caribbean, are fully relocated and operating from Johannesburg and Panama respectively.

While I was in Egypt a few weeks ago, I met with the Prime Minister, Dr. Ahmed Nazief, who confirmed to me Egypt’s invitation to host the UNFPA Arab States Regional Office and assured me that the Host Government Agreement will be signed shortly. Through support from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, both parties are in the process of finalizing the signing of the agreement and we are beginning preparations to move the rest of our staff from New York to our new premises in Cairo as soon as possible, hopefully by the end of the first quarter of 2010.

I would like to thank the Government of Egypt for finalizing the pending issues of the agreement. I would like to pay special tribute to the Permanent Representative of the Republic of Egypt to the United Nations, Ambassador Maged Abdel Aziz, for his consistent support and to the staff of the mission for working with us in facilitating the necessary communication. Special words of appreciation are due to our colleagues in the Arab States Regional Office who have been working effectively from two venues in spite of some personal hardships. Special thanks go to the Office of Legal Affairs of the United Nations for working with all parties to reach this successful result.

The Regional Office in Asia and the Pacific has also been relocated but is still operating through the UNDP Regional Centre while waiting for the host government agreement to be signed by the Government of Thailand. I urge the Government of Thailand to expedite the review process and the signing of the agreement so that the Office can be legally established.

As for the Eastern Europe and Central Asia Regional Office, we have received offers and expressions of interest from several governments to host the office. We will review the offers shortly, based on the same criteria that we used in selecting other regional office locations as agreed by the Executive Board. We will be consulting with you informally as we go along and brief you in May with a view to securing your endorsement. Depending on the arrangements with the host country, I am hoping to have the Regional Office operational in its regional venue by January 2011. This would complete regionalization by 31 December 2010 and bring closure to the regionalization project.

Transition to new Executive Director

Now I would like to say a few words about the transition to a new UNFPA Executive Director. I would like to assure you that you can expect a thorough and transparent process in accordance to established procedures set by the Secretary-General for such posts. As per your decision, the Secretary-General will consult with the Board before making his decision and we will keep you informed of the timeline and progress in this process. You can count on my personal commitment, and the commitment of all UNFPA staff, to a smooth transition that will provide the stable delivery of programmes and keep organizational momentum strong. Of course, the importance of the Board cannot be overstated in supporting a stable and vibrant UNFPA and an incoming Executive Director.

Update on Executive Board agenda items

This afternoon, we shall update you on the UNFPA policy on indirect cost recovery. I am also pleased to present the corrigendum of the results as requested in the decision last year approving the UNFPA biennial support budget. All of us agree that it is critical for UNFPA to be assessed on a comprehensive performance framework with a complete and robust set of results, and we know that there is still room for improvement. Work is underway in this area and we are looking forward to apprising you of progress during the upcoming mid-term review of the Strategic Plan.
Now a few words about the joint segment. On Friday afternoon, UNFPA Deputy Executive Director Mari Simonen and Director of the Programme Division Mabingue Ngom will update you on progress made in complying with audits. We will also take up the joint report to ECOSOC, and examine the joint information note of UNDP, UNFPA and UNICEF on the road map to an integrated budget, in which we seek your feedback and guidance. As you know, the task ahead is a challenging one and UNFPA counts on the support of this Executive Board to provide clear guidance so that the end result fully meets your expectations, and also to help manage the huge workload that this brings to Board members and the Secretariat.

UNFPA financial situation

Finally, I would like to turn to the financial situation of UNFPA. In 2009 the provisional core contributions from donor governments totaled approximately $469 million US dollars, an increase of $40 million from the previous year. We are truly grateful to our donors for paying on time and for trying their very best to honor their commitment, especially under these difficult circumstances. We were able to maintain a relatively stable income due to a very favorable exchange rate against the US dollar and thanks to the return of a major donor to UNFPA in 2009, the United States.

In 2009, five of our 20 major donors paid on the basis of multi-year commitments (Belgium, Ireland, Netherlands, Norway, and the United Kingdom), although some confirmed reductions. We also received 52 multi-year commitments from programme countries, which is truly encouraging. However, a number of donors and programme countries have announced cuts and contributions to the non-core part of our budget, which has been affected. The total amount received during 2009 was approximately $279 million US dollars, down approximately $43 million from 2008.

The level of co-financing resources remained at 30-35 per cent of total contributions until 2007, then grew to 43 per cent in 2008 and is now down to 37 per cent in 2009. For UNFPA to maintain the universality, neutrality and multilateralism that characterize its efforts and flexibility in allocating resources, it is essential that UNFPA continue to focus the bulk of resource mobilization efforts on increasing core resources. Although obtaining increases in co-financing resources is important, the ability of UNFPA to mobilize such resources depends on the existence of a stable and secure multilateral funding base. This is critical to enable UNFPA to support countries in implementing the ICPD Programme of Action and achieving the MDGs.

We hope that during 2010 you will be able to keep these commitments in spite of financial difficulties or to reconsider previously announced cuts. We also look forward to more multi-year commitments, as well as to payments as early as possible at the beginning of 2010 for us to properly plan and implement our activities.

I thank all of you for your confidence and trust in UNFPA.

Conclusion
Mr. President,
Distinguished Delegates,

Ten years ago when governments agreed on the Millennium Development Goals, global economic growth was strong and hopes were high that we could achieve them. Today with the financial crisis, the food and energy crises and climate change, hard-won development gains are under threat and we cannot afford complacency.

I remain optimistic because I know that when the sky is the darkest, you can see the brightest stars. This year, as we confront inequity and insecurity, as we confront skepticism and fatigue, let us keep our promises and let us keep our sights high.

We all believe that no woman should die giving life, that every woman and couple should be able to decide if and when to have children, that everyone should have the knowledge and means to protect their health, that girls and women should enjoy equal opportunities and rights, that every person should receive an education and be able to reach their full potential. We believe in the dream that emerged 15 years ago in Cairo at the International Conference on Population and Development.

Today, as I begin my last year as UNFPA Executive Director, I invite you to join me and my colleagues to keep this dream alive. And I ask you to keep reaching for the stars because it is only in aiming high that we can make this shared dream a reality.

Thank you.