AS DELIVERED
Thank you, Chair.
I have the pleasure of delivering this statement on behalf of the following countries: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, EU as a donor, Finland, Georgia, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, Israel, Japan, Kingdom of the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Republic of Korea, Romania, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Türkiye, Ukraine, the United Kingdom, and my own country, the United States of America.
At the outset, I note that we have delivered this statement at the UNDP/UNFPA/UNOPS and UNICEF Executive Board meetings during the last two weeks.
There has never been a more critical moment to ensure that the UN system’s governance and oversight functions are strong, transparent, effective, and based on the most robust international best practices. In a world struggling to manage multiple crises with ever limited resources, we must ensure that all resources deliver results for the most vulnerable and leave no one behind.
Among the central roles of a governing body is to help ensure effective oversight of an organization and its performance.
Strong oversight directly supports trust and partnership and can provide the right incentives for increased support, as appropriate. However, increased funding requests demand ever stronger oversight mechanisms and the will to administer them responsibly to maintain that trust and partnership.
Considering what has recently transpired within UNOPS, we believe this is an opportune moment to discuss and critically examine whether we are sufficiently executing our oversight responsibilities and functions.
We believe oversight must be an ongoing two-way conversation – one between organizations, such as UN Women, and their respective governing bodies. We commit to strengthening this conversation in the following ways:
- By engaging with agency management and internal oversight functions on what more can be done to strengthen oversight, accountability, and transparency at every level of the organization and throughout the chain of program delivery;
- By examining whether our joint efforts to strengthen governance are based on international best practices and standards to support the UN’s integrity as a development, humanitarian, and peace assistance partner;
- By creating and maintaining, as appropriate, a sustainable channel of independent communication between UN system and agency specific oversight offices and stakeholders in addition to traditional Executive Board engagement with management on these issues;
- By executing our oversight function in a more proactive and thorough manner, to ensure the agency has a reliable and diligent partner in their Executive Board in helping to mitigate against risks; and finally,
- By taking steps to assure that the Executive Board serves the best interests and expectations of program beneficiaries, agency staff, and taxpayers.
We appreciate management efforts to facilitate direct channels of communication between the audit office and the Executive Board. We look to your support for similar future engagements. We also express our sincere gratitude to the agency for a quick response to the Executive Board’s Annual Session decision, requesting a self-assessment of your internal audit functions. We also commend the Executive Director’s initiative and leadership to establish an internal ethics function, in line with the expectations of the UN Ethics Office. We welcome updates on this effort.
We believe in the value of continued discussions with and within the Executive Board on how we can keep strengthening our oversight over the coming year. In this regard we call on UN Women and the Executive Board to:
- Establish a sustainable and independent channel of communication between the Executive Board and key oversight stakeholders and entities to supplement management engagement; and
- Ensure that the annual calendar regularly includes robust and appropriate discussion on oversight matters.
Thank you
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