4th meeting, UN Women Executive Board, Annual Session

Good morning, Excellencies and distinguished delegates.
Welcome back to the last plenary meeting of the 2026 annual session of the UN Women Executive Board.
Before we start this session, I'd like to give the floor to the Executive Secretary for an announcement.
Mr.
Secretary-General Secretary.
I'm not promoting secretary.
You have the floor.
Thank you very much, Mr.
President, thank you for the promotion.
But I just want to say that on behalf of the Executive Director, miss Sabajz, I would like to inform you that she will be unable to attend this session of the executive board today due to some family obligation.
She extends her sincere apologies to all delegations and we wish her very well in her trip.
Thank you, Mr.
President.
Thank you, Mr.
Secretary.
Let's now continue our consideration of Agenda Item eight entitled Policy and Program Matters, during which the Executive Board will receive two updates, namely, number one, an update on the implementation of General Assembly Resolution 72 slash 279 on the repositioning of the United Nations Developing Development System.
And two, an update on UN Women policies and procedures to tackle sexual exploitation and abuse and sexual harassment.
We shall first turn to the update on the implementation of Gener Assembly resolution 72 slash 279 on the repositioning of the United Nations government system.
In addition to the Deputy Executive Directors and the executive board secretary, I would like to welcome the podium the following colleagues, namely, Sarah, Hendrix, Director, Policy Program and Intergovernmental Division, Mr.
Mohammed Anasii, Chief of Staff.
Well, he will join us later.
Thank you.
Hi.
There he is Alice Shekefield Director of Interim UN System Coordination Division.
She will join us virtually.
As part of this agenda item on the implementation of UN Assembly resolution 702 slash 279 on the repositioning of the United Nations government System, the Deputy Executive Director, MS arnsi Gumbo Zvanda will first deliver some opening remarks, which will be followed by virtual presentation by miss Alice Shecklfield, Director and Interim UN System Coordination Division.
Madam Deputy Executive Director, you have the floor.
Thank you.
Thank you so much, Mr.
President, our President of the Executive Board, the esteemed Executive Board members, my colleague Di Quesemadi and our UN women colleagues, good morning and thank you for this agenda item on day three of the Executive Board.
It is an honor for me to introduce this agenda item on the implementation and repositioning of the United Nations Development System.
Only yesterday we got the news around the epic in Venezuela.
The other day it was the Philippines and at the same time this morning the principals of the UN were meeting, reviewing and discussing on the development response to the Middle East situation.
Just mentioning this in order for us to understand that context matters.
As we deliver this agenda item, we are also very conscious of the context.
The repositioning of the United Nations development system was not intended as an institutional exercise for its own sake.
Its purpose was to enable the United Nations to deliver more effectively, more coherently, with greater accountability in support of the member states, the achievement of gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls, In the broader sustainable development goals for UN women, one of the greatest measures of whether this reform is succeeding is whether gender equality and women's empowerment is increasingly reflected in how the United Nations system plans its work, finances, and delivers collectively.
This is particularly important given the UN General Assembly resolution 64 slash 289 that established UN Women in which coordination is a core pillar of UN women's triple mandate and recognized the importance of delivery at the global level, at the regional level, and at the country level.
As you and women, we continue to reposition ourselves within the broader development system, remaining focused on ensuring that gender equality is central to the collective United Nations action at all levels of the system.
This matters because gender equality and women's rights and empowerment cannot be advanced by one entity alone.
It requires coordinated policy support, coordinated joint action, integrated financing, stronger data and evidence, collective accountability for results.
In many ways, it depends precisely on the capabilities of the member states to strengthen through development system reform and support.
The executive Director's report on the first day of this board highlighted important progress across several dimensions of the reform agenda.
The country level, the engagement with the UN City swap is more than doubled, increasing by 105% from 61 countries to 125 countries in 2025.
This reflects growing ownership of gender equality commitments across the resident coordinators in the United Nations country teams.
Today, more than 100 gender team groups across 136 United Nations country teams are helping translate global and interagency commitments into country level programs aligned with national priorities under the leadership of the resident coordinators with support of UN women, these mechanisms remain particularly important in context where UN women operates through multi country offices or where UN system presence and capabilities vary, helping extend accountability and coordination beyond UN women's physical footprint.
The report also points to improvement in accountability for gender equality across 75 United Nations entities, contributing to a stronger uptake of norms standards, and consistent integration of gender equality across development, humanitarian and peace building efforts.
This is particularly important given the increasing interconnected nature of development, humanitarian and peace contexts, including fragile settings in small island developing states facing structural vulnerabilities.
The report further highlights progress through the Secretary-General Gender Equality acceleration Plan.
The Gender Equality acceleration plan is helping sharpen leadership accountability and financing across the system whilst accelerating implementation to commitments already made.
At country level, it also supports UN women's dual role of influencing cooperation frameworks and system wide priorities while UN Women delivers on its own programs through the strategy notes aligned with national development objectives.
At the same time, the reports remind us that progress cannot be taken for granted, amid persistent regressions, stagnations, and pushback on gender equality, the share of United Nations development cooperation frameworks integrating gender equality declined from 66% in 2022 to 61% in 2025.
This only reinforces the importance of a strong and well functioning gender equality architecture across the United Nations system.
At a time when progress is uneven and resources are constrained, mechanisms of coordination, accountability, and collective action become even much more important.
The collective challenge to us is to ensure that these mechanisms continue to drive implementation at country level.
Therefore, our strong commitment that cooperation framework should have a gender outcome in addition to mainstreaming.
UN women, this is where UN women's precise coordination mandate adds value and builds on the commitments that member states already made through the UN City swap and the UN swap and the gender equality marker and other tools.
The report highlights how UN women's coordination mandate contributes to the broader architecture.
The interagency network on gender equality that is established by EcoSOC, we are pleased to share with you that we continue to strengthen this EcoSOC mandated structure, which supports development cooperation, and we will have an assistant interagency network so that we are able to build into recommendations into the high level committee on program.
Excellence is building on these efforts, UN Women is clear that pooled funds of the United Nations, like the Peace Building Fund, the SDG Fund are critical mechanisms that must continue to incorporate gender equality.
UN Women is also drawing on the findings of the rapid synthesis evaluation on coordination and yesterday, you spent time discussing evaluations, and I'm pleased to inform that for us, this is very important and in this regard, we really appreciate the executive director's decision to establish coordination specialists at the regional level in all our regional offices that have really seen us strengthen our work.
As you advised in the last two days, and as we continue on the discussions on UN Ay, UN Women remains very strongly involved in the country configuration and regional research discussions, and we remain helping shape a more coherent, effective, and context specific response that centers gender equality and coordination within that effort, maximizing on the lessons learned and scaling up on opportunities.
I would like with this introduction, to invite to welcome through you, Mr.
President, Alice Skovic, the director of the Coordination Division, acting ad interim to provide a detailed update, and again, to extend our appreciation for the support that the board continues to provide in the guidance on this critical aspect of our triple mandate coordination.
Thank you, sir.
I thank the Deputy Executive Director for her introductory remarks.
May I now invite miss Alice Sheckelford to present the update on the implementation of General Assembly Resolution 72 slash 279 on the repositioning of the United Nations Development System.
Miss Shackelford, you have the floor virtually.
Your Excellency, distinguished delegates and colleagues, it is an honor to share from our global office in Nairobi the highlights of our contribution to the repositioned United Nations development system for our unique triple mandate.
Three things I will share with you today.
First, we must recognize that UN woman has a unique dual role as an active member of the UN development system and as a lead entity on gender equality, leveraging the entire UN system.
UN Women brings the gender equality expertise, normative grounding, and coordination function that enable large programs led by different agency of the UN system to deliver more coherently for women and girls.
There is a clear multiplier effect of UN women's coordination mandate and through our strong engagement with resident coordinators, UN country teams, agency funds and programs, as well as regional collaborative platform, we serve as a knowledge on gender equality, providing leadership, standards, technical expertise at global, regional, and country level.
In 2025, the UN achieved gender parity in international, professional and IA categories for the first time.
27 out of 38 UN entities now reaching parity, up from five in 2017, UN women led this process by supporting the system wide strategy on gender parity.
Second, our contribution extends well beyond our programs and strengthens the entire UN system.
Therefore, when you member states, invest in UN women, you are not all investing in one entity's program.
You are investing in the connective tissue that enables the broader UN system to deliver more coherently on gender equality and women's rights through the UN system, gender equality architecture.
We are currently guiding and supporting 75 UN entities and 126 UN cities for the implementation of system wide action plans on gender, including gender parity standards and gender markers as mentioned by our deputy Executive Director.
UN Women's Coordination mandate has been further reinforced by the 2024 Secretary-General system wide Gender Equality acceleration Plan, which was launched to accelerate progress on gender equality and empowerment of women.
Our strategic planning documents are 100% aligned to cooperation frameworks, and our representatives at country level regularly report to resident coordinators in line with the management accountability framework.
The course, I know genda has strengthened the knowledge of more than 45,000 UN personnel worldwide.
And our leading role in UN country teams to advance the implementation of the convention on the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women has translated in 99% of the UN country team submitting reports since 2022.
Now we know very well the resident coordinator leadership is critical to advance gender equality, and that's why we work very closely with the Development Cooperation Coordination Office at the global and regional level, and we have met our funding obligations of $2.7 million in 2025.
At the same time, UN Women country offices participate in 80% of active business operation strategy arrangement, and 76% of our offices are co located in UN common premises.
The increased use of common services and common back office solution has generated efficiency gains and cost savings of $15.2 million.
This is 3.8 times higher of what we reported last year.
Third point and last, while progress is evident, it is not guaranteed.
Efforts remain uneven and in some cases are at risk of regression.
Sustained leadership, adequate resourcing, and stronger collaboration, particularly at country level with resident coordinators are essential to maintain momentum, prevent duplication, and ensure that gender equality remains a system wide priority in cooperation frameworks and in other plans like humanitarian response plans, and in the case of cooperation frameworks, as mentioned by ODD, only 71% mainstream gender in 2025.
And together with that challenge, we must ensure with your leadership, adequate and predictable financing for gender equality commitments under the Funding Compact.
As you and woman, we are committed to achieving gender equality and under your leadership and in partnership with civil society and partners, we are committed to advance the 2030 agenda, respond to humanitarian crisis, and ensure peace and security.
Thank you for your continuous partnership and support.
Over to you, Mr.
President.
Thank you so much, Alice, for that update.
I will now open the floor for member states interventions with respect to the aforementioned agenda item.
Those wishing to speak may indicate so by pressing the microphones on their desks.
Thank you.
My first speaker is Finland.
Finland, you have the floor.
Thank you, Mr.
President, Excellencies, I delivered this statement on behalf of the following member states, Albania, Australia, Belgium, Canada, Czech Republic, Denmark, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, Japan, Luxembourg, Republic of Moldova, Montenegro, the Kingdom of Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom, the EU as a donor, and my own country, Finland.
We share the ambition to make the UN development system more coherent, effective, efficient, and impactful at country level.
UN Women is central to that ambition.
Since the adoption of General Assembly Resolution 72 slash 279, progress has been made and UN Women has played a constructive role.
Yet the system is still not delivering on its full potential.
Fragmentation, competition for funding, and weak incentives for collaboration continue to undermine collective impact.
In a context of lagging SDG progress, growing humanitarian needs, and constrained ODA, this is not sustainable.
We need a UN that acts as one UN in country under the leadership of empowered resident coordinators with UN women as fully engaged and supportive partner.
The UN AT Initiative offers a unique opportunity to accelerate and strengthen the implementation of the repositioning of the UNDS launched in 2017.
We ask all UN entities, including UN Women, to actively engage and show ownership of efforts under UN AT Workstream three through concrete steps.
First, ensure UN sustainable development cooperation frameworks are the real drivers of UN women's country work.
The cooperation framework should be the single costed system wide strategy at country level in line with national priorities.
Entity specific country program instruments must be genuinely derived from and not loosely aligned with cooperation frameworks.
Sequencing the finalization of entity country program instruments after finalization of the cooperation frameworks should be the standard.
As executive board, we can work with entities to help with sequencing while protecting program delivery.
We encourage UN Women to ensure its country level reporting clearly captures its contribution to cooperation framework results and join UN outcomes, not only agency specific outputs.
It is also key that UN Women ensures live work plans and resource pipelines are visible to the RC throughout implementation.
And our question here would be, what more could you and women do at global, regional, and country level to further elevate the cooperation frameworks as central strategic frameworks? Then second, consistently and fully support resident coordinator and humanitarian coordinator leadership.
This includes recognizing the RCHC as the default strategic interlocutor for high level engagement with government and donors, systematically involving the RC in major strategic decisions and ensuring that project proposals agreed directly with donors are fully in line to the cooperation framework and are shared with the RCHC in advance.
Question here would be whether you could share which challenges you and women faces that limit your ability to do so.
We also support a stronger role for RCs in the selection and performance assessments of country representatives.
Country representatives should be assessed based on their contribution to collective results and the delivery of the cooperation framework.
We call on UN women to more systematically request and integrate RC feedback into the performance assessments of country representatives.
Third, tailor agency in country presence to national contexts, comparative advantage, and the needs identified in the cooperation framework in consultation with RCs and host governments.
This remains a key unfinished element of UNDS reform.
We encourage UN women to draw the system wide evaluation on progress towards a new generation on UN CTs and meaningfully contribute to the UN country team reconfiguration.
Fourth, advanced shared services.
We are encouraged by the system wide efficiency gains of over 980 million USD in 2025 and count on UN women to build on this progress to make shared services, common back offices, and co location the norm.
The number of common back offices at country level remains limited and here would be, what, in your view are the main obstacles to establishing common back offices and do you have suggestions as how these obstacles could be overcome? Finally, we acknowledge that as member states, we also have an important role.
Funding practices must incentivize collaboration rather than fragmentation.
The current imbalance between core and earmarked resources and the proliferation of short term project based funding undermine strategic planning and joint work.
Here comes the question.
Beyond funding, what is the one key change member states can enact that would enable you to reduce competition and better align with cooperation frameworks? Mr.
President, by fully embracing system wide reforms, UN women can enhance its impact and help the UN deliver as one where it matters most at country level.
Thank you.
I thank the distinguished Delegate of Finland for intervention.
I I give the floor to the Dominican Republic, followed by Spain and Rwanda Dominic Thank you.
Thank you, Mr.
Chairman, distinguished executive directors, distinguished delegates.
I state this on behalf of Antigua Barbuda, Mexico, Peru, and my own country, the Dominican Republic.
As we come closer to 2030 with only a fraction of the SDGs underway.
The agenda is clear.
The quadrennial policy framework marks progress and must orient our strategic actions.
We recognize UN women as an ally in improving in gender equality and the empowerment of women, and we believe that an effective UN development system leads to results for women and girls.
We encourage UN women to increase its participation in joint programs and joint funds to maximize impact.
Efficiency is a need for millions of women and girls throughout the world.
Any gain in efficiency should create greater spaces for the work and the work of UN women ensures policies and casts attention to barriers, increases opportunities.
We underscore that gains in efficiency should be measured not only in financial terms, but also for their contribution to improving gender equality, including through sustained investment.
And organizations on the rights of women.
Strengthening the presence and cooperation at the international level continue to be at the center of the system's reform.
We encourage greater cooperation in all country teams of the United Nations, and we ask UN women offices to work with other agencies of the UN joint programming, partnerships to combat violence against women and back offices.
Joint back offices are results of a more and indicate a more coherent approach.
We recognize the contributions of we and women to the system of resident coordinators, and we call upon safeguards to ensure that those operational activities are not hindered by coordination structures.
Reforms must improve accountability without reducing the capacities of each mandate.
Modernizing data and digital systems is another critical part of the repositioning effort.
We encourage the participation of UN women, which is encouraging that data are better prepared for AI.
Presence in countries must be promoted by context and need, including the level of income and geography and not uniform places.
This is important for the less developed countries, landlocked countries, small island developing states, and countries in conflict or post conflict situations.
Middle income countries.
For them, the reform should not penalize these countries only based on the level of income.
It should consider the vulnerability, inequality, and the specific needs of women and girls.
Presence in the country continues to be essential when mandates cannot technically comply.
In this regard, we underscore that as reforms are implemented, the measures of efficiency and adjustments to country contributions in the last resort must strengthen field contributions.
We must strengthen capacities of UN women, especially where they are most needed in the countries which are most vulnerable and affected by crisis.
The strategic notes are important, but we must ensure pragmatic flexibility to safeguard implementation.
We know that the cycles of strategic notes must be aligned with national cycles and allow for adjustment in contexts of crisis without needing total reprogramming.
Operational reform also requires flexible programming.
Basic and joint resources must be used flexibly and for financial impact.
Looking at the future, we wish to understand how are we measuring the gains and efficiencies throughout the system and how do they contribute to program delivery at the national level? We would also be grateful for prospects of the governance structures, including strategic notes.
Lastly, we would also like to know how member states and the executive board will remain totally involved in decision making.
Thank you.
I thank the distinguished delegates of the Dominican Republic and now give the floor to Spain.
Thank you very much to all those present.
Spain is grateful for the presentation of this update on the implementation of the reform of the United Nations Development System.
We fully support the ambition of building a more effective, coherent, efficient, and result oriented system.
The UNAD Initiative should consolidate and deepen the advances made since the 2018 reform and not to weaken anything.
In particular, we believe that the system of resident coordinators and mechanisms of joint financing are some of the main achievements of this reform and should continue to be pillars of the system.
We wish to underscore the importance of strengthening leadership, the capacities, and sustainable financing of the RC system.
Their role is essential to guarantee the coherence of action of the UN in the field and to assure that supporting the system, in fact, responds to national priorities.
It is also important to continue to promote the active participation of UN women and interagency initiatives at country level, including those supported by the joint SDG fund as an instrument to strengthen the action of the system.
Spain also supports efforts toward having a new generation of country teams which are more agile, the configuration of country teams should respond to national priorities as defined in the cooperation frameworks and make strategic use of the comparative advantages of each entity.
We view with interest thinking about mechanisms which allow for combining the physical presence with other modalities.
Specialized, including a better use of regional capacities.
However, any process of repositioning should be based on the needs of countries to preserve or support and to strengthen the leadership of the RC.
We also think it important to continue with joint programs and mechanisms we see a information.
We must guarantee repositioning to promote gender equality in the empowerment of women.
In conclusion, Spain considers that the next phase of reform should be built on the basis of achievements already made, strengthening coherence, efficacy and the capacity of the system at the service of the priorities of countries and full implementation of the 2030 agenda.
Thank you.
The distinguished representative of Spain for his intervention.
I now give the floor to Rwanda.
There will be no automatic microphone cutoffs, take your time for the benefit of the interpreter.
Miranda have the floor.
Thank you, Mr.
President.
We give you another time in office.
Thank you, Mr.
President and thanks for you and women to really give us a comprehensive briefing for its continued leadership in ensuring that gender equality remains central to the implementation of the development system reform.
We welcome also the progress reported, particularly the increase in cooperation frameworks that mainstream gender equality or include a dedicated gender equality outcome from 44% in 2024 to 61% in 2025.
We commend UN women's efforts to strengthen system wide coordination, including support to 125 UN country teams, 75 UN entities through accountability frameworks, and the training of over 45,000 UN personnel through the IN Gender Program.
This is very impressive.
Mr.
President, colleagues, we note with appreciation the reported deficiency gains of US dollar $15 million, nearly four times higher than the previous reporting period, as well as the increase in a common premise from 69% to 76%.
This is very impressive if compared to previous reports again.
Now, while progress is encouraging, the report indicates that the report indicates that 39% of the cooperation frameworks still do not mainstream gender equality nor include a dedicated gender equality outcome.
Now, what additional measures are envisaged by the UN Women team to address this gap and to ensure that full implementation of the QCPR commitments across all the UN country team? This is very important for countries that have UN country teams.
The report further highlights and even implementation of the management and accountability framework across the UN system.
What are the principal obstacles in your view to achieve greater consistency and what support may be required from the governing bodies and as other colleagues mentioned from us, the members of the executive board to be able to achieve that gap.
We further note that only 46% of the UN country teams met or exceeded the benchmark of allocating 70% of the joint work plans resources together to gender equality and women's empowerment.
Therefore, the question is, what lessons can be drawn from the high performing countries and how can these practices be replicated broadly and in other countries? Mr.
President, the report further notes that targeted investments to close the gender digital divide could benefit from 343 million women, 343 million women and girls, and generated 1.5 trillion in the GDP by 2030.
How is UN women working with development partners and governments to translate these projections into concrete investments, particularly in developing countries such as mine, landlocked countries such as mine, and least developing countries such as mine.
Finally, Randa remains supportive of the development system and that is coherent, efficient, accountable, and capable of delivering measurable results for women and girls, which is the objective and mandate of the UN women.
Again, we thank the UN women for the presentation and forward looking to the responses from the management.
Thank you very much.
I thank the distinguished representative of Randa for his comments.
We can now give the floor to the Secretariat for a response.
Secretariat, you have the floor.
Thank you.
Thank you so much, Mr.
President and our appreciation to the very range of comments, advice, questions to ask.
I will take a couple of comments and respond and my colleague D D semadi will speak in response to some of the issues raised, and my colleague Alice is online, who also speak to the work and approach at the country level within the UNCT and our director for PPID, Sarah Hendrix, will also speak to the issues around data and some of the issues from the programming point of view.
So let me first respond to the questions raised by the board on context.
Within which we are responding as part of the system coordination, context of least developed countries, seeds, middle income countries.
This is a very critical question as we develop our strategy, not as we contribute within the UN system to the commitments that you made.
We are reminded often that GDP does not translate to equality.
GDP is an indicator of growth.
But does not translate to economic opportunities immediately for all women and for all girls.
In our work in Latin America, for instance, we have a number of countries which are middle income states, the challenges that they raised around some of the restrictions on ODA, and therefore, what are the approaches we need to take from a resourcing of development point of view in the partnerships that we have to do.
My colleague Cassim will speak more to the issues around resourcing.
But I also want to really appreciate some of the countries middle income countries, which are also funding two UN women development work in the country in addition to the wider fundraising that we do.
I think this is one point that is very important for us.
It's a question that also raised when countries are moving from being an LDC and migrating to being a middle income country.
What are the implications for resourcing the development work that we are doing and we will continue to then engage with the resident coordinator system and the development system overall.
On these points for gender equality.
The second big point that you raised is around ownership and internal coherency to reassure the board that as UN women, we remain very much in the country in country ownership.
It's important, it's cardinal, and at the same time, we develop our strategy notes with a good sequencing that even if you approved the corporate UN Women strategic plan last year, We did not automatically ask all our country offices to also amend their strategy notes.
We needed to make the appropriate sequencing to make sure that the country strategy notes are aligned with the duration in the timelines of the cooperation framework.
So we actually have a number of countries where we are actually developing the country strategy notes from starting from next year in order to ensure there is that alignment that you have really stressed in this conversation.
The points that you raised on what are some of the lessons that we can draw on and the critical levers between now and 2030.
We are so inspired also by the big progress being made by member states and my colleague, Sarah may speak to some of the programmatic issues.
For instance, the question on women's leadership, Rwanda as an example, it's a new norm that Rwanda created that women can be more women in parliament or a 50 50 can be achieved.
And so we need those new norms to be scaled up, especially on the indicators, which are the core indicators of the SDGs.
The core indicators of the SDGs in relation to gender equality, women in decision making is one critical lever that we need to continue to invest in.
The second critical lever in that SDG five is violence against women.
And this is also where we have good practice working within the system, including the Spotlight Initiative, including the Violence Against Women Trust Fund, the intersection with the trust fund on women, peace and humanitarian, and we can scale up.
We can build on the good lessons around collaboration, collaborative work on violence against women and on gender based violence.
We can build on the work that we have around care, and also around data.
My colleague, Sarah, can speak more to that on the detail.
The other question that you raised esteemed executive board members is, what are the opportunities for joint program and pod funding? We have many examples at the global level and at the country level of where we have joint programs.
I think the first, which is very important for us is to continue to ask that the board supports the gender equality marker in all United Nations funds.
And one key important step is as we go through the web package five and six of the UN reform, focusing on country research and regional research in the pilot countries we must and we are contributing to those pilot countries actually being models on how we integrate gender equality, but in building a gender marker so that UN women does not have to look for extra resources for gender equality in a UN pilot process for which resources are made available.
The gender marker and the piloting is going to be very important.
We are also very much encouraged by some of the good examples on joint programs that we have We have a multi joint program that has been running with the Rome based agencies with EFD FAO, WFP at the global level on rural women and women's economic empowerment.
Equally we see that replication in countries like Nepal.
What we continue to ask is to continue to build on these big joint programs that are also able to translate global norms into country level responses.
I would like to stop here and Mr.
President to um Therefore request my colleague Di Queimaddi on the financial issues and other points that have been raised by the members.
Thank you.
Thank you so much, Mr.
President.
Thank you, Danazy and thank you again to the delegates for very really insightful questions that really go to the heart of our efforts and our work.
On the resourcing question, I would actually just reiterate what our colleague, Alice from Nairobi was saying, the criticality of core resources to support our coordination function really has a multiplier effect.
And ensuring that the gender marker is met, ensuring that our ability to influence the country teams as a member of the UN country team to ensure that gender equality is mainstreamed across the cooperation framework and that we can have specific outcomes.
You heard in the opening statement of the executive director on Tuesday, telling the story, not just the story, but giving the facts of how actually we have actually seen a decline in the number of specific gender equality outcomes in the cooperation frameworks last year.
We really need to take all collective efforts and we also count on your support so that you as member states, in the other governing bodies, and in your discussions with the other agencies, you also bring the issue up because gender equality is absolutely the multiplier and the catalytic SDG, the element that can help us to achieve the other development outcomes that we want to achieve.
There was a question also about the recruitment of our country representatives.
I'm very happy to report to you that in the case of UN women country representatives, heads of offices, we very frequently.
I cannot give you now the exact number, but in the majority of cases, the resident coordinator actually is part of the selection panel.
We have felt that that has been a very good practice and we have really benefited from the perspective of the resident coordinators.
It may not be the case absolutely in every single case, but very frequently, and I think it is a good practice from which we have definitely benefited.
Now, in terms of the questions related to the common services, global common services, common PAC offices, just to say, first of all, that within the framework of the high level committee on management, we've been very actively contributing to the different workstreams over there, which linked to the Unified Services roadmap, as well as within the USDG Business Innovation Group, which specifically is looking into the common PAC offices and common services.
We are seeing not necessarily always a financial benefit for UN women at this stage because so many of our services already are outsourced.
You know that UNDP is a service provider for us for many of the so called back office functions, but we are very actively sharing our expertise and experience because we see the whole, the UN system as a whole will benefit from that.
For the common BAC offices, UN Women is part of all the common PAC offices which have been established and actually very actively supporting the establishment of new ones, the latest one having been in Pakistan.
From our side, you can rest assured that there are very few obstacles for advancing the work on the common PAC offices.
Common premises, you saw already, we have 76% of our offices in there, so we are very much committed and see the advantage of the UN system coming together.
There can be always a little bit growing pains as is with everything, everything new that you bring about, but I can also just from my participation in the high level committee on management and in the Business Innovation Group, I can really attest to the commitment not only from you and women, but actually the commitment from the system to really move forward on this front.
Thank you so much.
I thank the ED Casey for the response.
May I give the floor to Alice Skerfd, followed by Sarah.
Thank you very much.
Thank you very much.
Excellent questions as usual and very interesting debate.
We will need many hours to touch on all the issues, but let me try to capture some important elements.
We are very clear, the cooperation framework must be the guiding framework at the country level.
If we want a unified, coherent, and effective and efficient United Nations system.
That is why you and women invest so much resources, human financial in really advocating and working in the country teams on ensuring that those cooperation frameworks are gender mainstreamed, at least and have a gender equality outcome.
But what do we face? We face entities who refuse that, who counter that.
We backlash also within the UN system and we need to be very sure.
Your role in executive boards of all the entities is to reinforce once again and strongly not only the role to mainstream gender in the programs and in the mission and mandate, but to support the rest of the UN system and UN women in advocating throughout the cooperation framework.
The alignment of the work between the executive board is critical, more critical than ever.
Coherence and alignment is very, very critical.
Funding dynamics at country level.
Let me say, as a former residence coordinators, do not always reflect the commitments of member states in these spaces.
I have not seen often that really happening and often, that is the divide and the division is also created by member states at the country level and in particular development partners.
That's also something that we need to look at to ensure that the coherence is represented across from the capitals down to the countries where we work.
Now, we have a commitment and we have already implemented a 100% alignment of our strategic notes with the cooperation framework.
Is that happening with all UN entities? Not necessarily.
There again, another role that we need to keep insisting on working together.
Accountability of resident coordinators.
This is an opportunity and a challenge.
As I said in my presentation, we recognize and very much highlight the importance of a relationship and the partnership with the Development coordination office and we've worked with them to increase our accountability.
As you heard also the number of cooperation frameworks mainstreamed of a number also the UN City swaps by entities.
But still, that is not complete.
We need to insist that the performance review of resident coordinators fully reflect that and that the work of the resident coordinators really fully reflects also the commitment of gender equality, especially keeping in mind the gender equality acceleration plan and the clarion call of the Secretary-General that needs to translate not only with resident coordinators, but humanitarian coordinators and nationally political missions in that regard.
Now, young woman works actively with, for example, the joint SDG fund in terms of the application of the gender equality market.
It works also with the Peace Building Fund which has a 30% target for gender equality and women's empowerment and has been really even served us to 40%.
This is an excellent example that this is connected to funding and availability of funding.
You and women would like to have much more joint programs than as it does now.
The naturally, we know that there are limited availability of joint funding and joint pool funds at country level.
There again, we go back to the funding compact and the role of the member states.
All the discussion on the country configuration that is going on now in the UNA, and I was just representing the DD in a meeting just an hour ago, again, we are making the case that the pilots and the cohorts of pilots in the country configuration need to ensure the role of gender the groups, the mainstreaming, and the strong positioning of gender equality, and we need your support to advocate and to ensure that is a reality.
A also in the regional reset, where we are hearing about the new LPIs We are seeing the design of that, but how do we ensure that gender equality is at the center and all the efforts that we've done in issue based coalitions on gender equality across the regions through a regional office and the regional coordination specialists need to be strengthened and increased by institutionalizing, for example, a specific issue based coalition on gender equality, gender based violence in that regard.
Regional directors need to be accountable as well to support that.
The last thing that I would want to say that Again, UN entities are strengthening and we are seeing it.
They are strengthening agenda policy agenda strategies.
The UN entities do not look at gender equality across the UN system.
UN woman does.
UN woman looks at gender equality across the UN system.
UN woman needs to be taken into consideration also when you develop programs and initiatives with the rest of the UN system, to ensure that UN woman is part of that conversation, to support the entity in strengthening gender, not necessarily in implementing the work.
Our role is not to take over the role of the rest of the UN system, but it is to support them to further integrate.
Ensure that that element is included in the programs and in the initiatives with the rest of the UN system and that there is a role for us to really provide that guidance and that the gender fin groups are positioned in a strategic manner in that regard.
And to the specific question of Finland, the representation of many other countries on what are the key changes that member states can enable in alignment of cooperation framework.
I want to say two quick things.
One, support the UN system gender equality architecture.
We need to recognize that there is an old architecture on gender equality across the UN system.
UN woman is leading it and that we recognize all the potential around those elements and we interact, and connect better together with strong accountability and incentives.
And as I said before, do not war, do not allow that work is done in the UN system without that element of gender equality captured by gender markers, captured by the UN City swaps or the UN swaps or others and really ensure that that space for UN women is really enhanced.
Sometimes young woman still has to fighting for a space at the table, fighting for really ensuring that the gender equality is at the table.
We can't afford in no country, in no contest, we can't afford a gender blind cooperation framework or a gender blind humanitarian response plan or a gender planned refugee plan in that regard.
And The last thing that I will comment is about how do we operate and how do we support and look at different modalities around physical presence.
Young woman has a strong strategy of work in non physical presence countries and we are finalizing a strategy in that regard.
We have the regional coordination specialists which are working directly with country teams and we partner with others as well in this regard.
But let's be careful that by diluting also the presence of gender and you and women, we dilute all the work that we've done up to now, gender equality.
Over to you.
Thank you.
Please, you have the floor.
Kendrick, you have the floor.
Thank you so much, dear President and indeed, thank you, all colleagues and honorable delegates around the room for this substantive conversation and in particular for the question around the targeted investments and the way that UN women is working to address the gender digital divide together with partners and with governments around the world.
Indeed, as we know, digital technologies in AI are increasingly the cornerstones of economies and of societies, and yet their benefits, their opportunities are not being shared equally.
And so consequently, you and women in our new strategic plan has positioned digital technology as a critical mainstreaming item cutting through the impact areas and our systemic outcomes of our strategic plan.
Allow me to bring this to life for you in terms of our triple mandate.
So first in the normative space, here, UN Women provides global leadership on digital inclusion and on gender equality and its intersection across critical normative spaces.
For example, we mobilized stakeholders and integrated gender equality into the center of the global digital compact in order to shape international dialogues on digital rights and really to ensure that the digital revolution is among the priorities of governments and partners as AI governance moves forward.
In this regard, we are also actively engaged in the forthcoming preparations for the first UN General Assembly mandated global AI dialogue, which as you know, will take place in the first week of July during the high level Geneva Technology Week.
And we're grateful, of course, to this dialogue being co facilitated by El Salvador and Estonia.
Beyond this work in the normative space, UN women also work steadfastly to coordinate across the UN system by playing an advisory role to the UN system, to position gender equality and women's empowerment in global, regional and national digital governance dialogues, and to lead the system to mainstream gender and digital policies and initiatives that different parts of the system are engaging.
In this regard, we work steadfastly with ITU, for example, in a partnership called equals and building, of course, in our shared leadership of the Action Coalition on gender equality, digital technology and innovation.
Furthermore, we work across the system to ensure system wide coherence in the implementation of UN 2.0, and we support UN 2.0 digital pillar and the forthcoming UN 80 commitments around that.
We have contributed in this regard to the unified roadmap to operationalize a gender and digital commitments to ensure that norms are really translating into action in and across the entire UN 2.0 architecture on digital transformation.
And finally, in terms of our operational mandate and how this translates across our strategic plan.
Indeed, we see and provide quality assurance on integrating digital as that cross cutting issue in our new strategic plan.
A great example of this is the way in which the implementation of one of our flagship initiatives across Africa has elaborated important priorities as well as results through the African Girls Can Code Initiative.
This is one example of our work coming to life in our new strategic plan and building on strong results of our last strategic plan.
We also advance critical research and knowledge initiatives through and across our impact areas, for example, on digital public infrastructure from a gender lens and its relationship with ending violence against women and girls.
We, moreover, and building on the strong advancement of results across CSW 67 agreed conclusions, have very explicit work through a new corporate strategy on technology facilitated gender based violence.
This strategy builds on the CSW agreed conclusions to not only strengthen norms and standards through comprehensive legal frameworks addressing online abuse, but also to invest in accountability, to collectively expand data and evidence on what works to prevent online violence, and to finally amplify women's voice and agency as well as digital resilience and leadership across countries and regions in the space of digital violence.
It is these combined areas in our normative work, our coordination work across the system, and certainly in our operational work that drives forward a growing portfolio of engagement by UN women across our countries, regions, and global offices to ensure that the digital divide is closed once and for all.
Thank you so much.
I thank the Secretariat for that comprehensive response.
I see no further requests for the floor.
We can now move to our next presentation under the agenda item, namely an update on UN women policies and procedures to tackle sexual exploitation and abuse and sexual harassment.
On the podium, in addition to the deputy executive directors and the secretary of the board, I will invite the following colleagues, Prasan Chakra Bhati, Director of Human Resources, Thank you.
Sarah Hendrix already with us here, Director of P, P and intergovernmental division, and me Tush Das senior advisor for coordination and focal points for women in the UN system.
I'm pleased to invite the Deputy Executive Director, miss Kissi May for her presentation.
You have the floor.
Thank you so much, Mr.
President and distinguished members of the executive board.
It's a pleasure for me to update you today on UN women's most recent and ongoing actions to prevent and to respond to sexual exploitation and abuse and sexual harassment.
These lie at the heart of our triple mandate and reflect our commitment to advancing the empowerment of women and girls in the communities we serve.
Strengthening organizational culture remains central to our PSCH efforts, including through leadership accountability, fostering trust in reporting mechanisms, and ensuring protection from retaliation.
UN Women recognizes that effective safeguarding depends on meaningful engagement with and accountability to the communities we serve.
Accordingly, we work closely with women led and civil society organizations to ensure that safeguarding measures are informed by community voices and are responsive to local realities.
At the core of our action is victim survivor centered approach, which respects the rights, wishes, needs, and dignity of victims and survivors, seeking to protect them from retaliation and re traumatization, and ensures provision of timely assistance and support.
To operationalize these efforts at the regional and country level, we have established a strong network of 127 PSEH focal points across our global presence.
Our approach is complemented by a strong focus on prevention and response, including awareness raising, risk mitigation, including with implementing partners, and robust vetting and accountability measures.
In 2025, we continue to expand entity level outreach on SEA and SH.
As a result, over 90% of UN women personnel indicated in the annual PSEA Perception Survey, their awareness on how and where to report SEA and SH.
In parallel, we have strengthened engagement with community members and leaders as well as women led associations, including through research and knowledge sharing.
Also, our risk owning units have maintained 98% rate of integrating SEA and SH into the risk assessments as part of our enterprise risk management framework.
Concurrently, we assess 82% of civil society organizations with whom we partner and government implementing partners on their PSEA capacities.
This represents an increase of 15% from 2024.
We have also successfully implemented Clear Check 2.0, which expanded misconduct screening beyond SEA and SAH to include also racism, racial discrimination, and other forms of serious misconduct and extended the coverage to all personnel as well as our standby personnel.
Pursuant to the executive board decision, 2024 slash eight and 2025 slash ten, and to complement the clear check, a pilot of the misconduct disclosure scheme was launched across four humanitarian settings earlier this year.
This will help to prevent the hiring of individuals with a history of sexual misconduct beyond the UN system.
In terms of accountability, we ensure that allegations are addressed through the established investigative processes and that timely action is taken in substantiated cases.
UN Women has also continued to leverage its technical expertise through various interagency working groups on SEA, including the SEA working groups led by the Office of the Special Coordinator on improving the UN system response to SEA, the Interagency Standing Committee, Technical Advisory Group on SEA, and the PSEA Implementing Partner Protocol working group.
Turning now to our engagement on preventing and responding to sexual harassment, UN Women actively contributed to the high level committee on Management executive group on sexual harassment.
We led last year the workstream on knowledge sharing and collaboration and actively contributed to the workstreams on victim and survivor support policies and capacity building.
In this leadership role of the knowledge sharing collaboration, we strengthened the UN System Knowledge Hub on addressing sexual harassment by enhancing accessibility for persons with disabilities and translating it into all six official UN languages, leading to considerable increase in engagement.
We also completed a comprehensive review of the UN system tools to prevent and address sexual harassment, drawing on best practices and lessons learned within and outside of the UN.
In parallel, UN women continue to support multisexual partners to help end sexual harassment in various settings through global initiatives such as safe cities.
In response to the growing global challenge of online violence, like my colleague Sarah just mentioned, in 2025, we developed the UN Women strategy on ending technology facilitated violence against women.
In this context and building on this work, I'm pleased to inform you that UN Women is, as of this year, co leading with UNFPA, a new workstream on technology facilitated sexual harassment as part of the HLCM Executive Group on sexual harassment.
In closing, the delegates, UN Women reaffirms its strong commitment to addressing sexual exploitation and abuse and sexual harassment in all of its forms.
Across the UN system, we have made important progress while continuing to navigate shared challenges, including financial challenges.
Together, we will build on the efforts and advance the implementation of the recommendation of the Joint Inspection Unit.
I would like to thank the Executive Board for his continued support in advancing this critical agenda.
Thank you.
Thank you very much for your comprehensive presentation, Madam Deputy Executive Director.
I now open the floor for member states interventions with respect to the aforementioned agenda item.
You may indicate so by pressing the microphone on your desk.
Thank you.
I see no comments.
That means the response has been quite the United Kingdom.
Okay.
All right.
United Kingdom, you have the floor.
Thank you, Mr.
President.
I deliver this statement on behalf of Albania, Australia, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, Denmark, the EU as a donor, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Japan, Luxembourg, Mexico, Moldova, Monaco, the Kingdom of the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Romania, Slovakia, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, Zambia, and my own country, the United Kingdom.
We thank UN Women for its continued efforts to strengthen protection from and response to sexual exploitation, abuse and harassment, ACA.
As we made clear in the board discussions last year, protection from SAA is a non optional core accountability commitment, even amid resourcing constraints.
Leadership is critical to sustain progress.
We are at a critical juncture.
Financial pressures and staff reductions are weakening protection systems, limiting prevention efforts and access to survivor support and risk hard won progress when needs remain high.
The erosion of gender based violence services, including the weakening of community based and women led organizations, is particularly concerning as these constitute essential entry points for reporting.
Under reporting remains a systemic challenge driven by fear, lack of trust, and perceived inaction.
These challenges are acute for women and children who are among the most vulnerable and depend on specialized approaches.
We welcome greater clarity on how UN Women is ensuring its prevention, response, and victim survivor support approaches are child sensitive and survivor centered.
The important 2025 JIU review on CAA underlined the need for dedicated expertise, clear accountability, and sustained resourcing.
We urge UN women to protect the good practices that the review identified, fully implement the recommendations, and prioritize sufficient human and financial resources for CA prevention and response, particularly at country level, recognizing the importance of building country level capacity and strengthening national safeguarding systems.
Will UN women report to the board on implementing the JIU report and special coordinator recommendations? Can it provide a table outlining recommendations and actions taken? The JIU review highlights that tackling CAA requires a system wide effort.
With shrinking resources, collaboration should increase, not diminish.
We encourage UN women to improve efficiency and impact through mechanisms such as the common approach to protection from CAA and the misconduct disclosure scheme.
UN 80 and the humanitarian reset offer a unique opportunity to embed a strengthened, well resourced, sustainable, system wide approach to protection from CAA.
We urge agencies to work with member states and each other to influence these reform processes to ensure this happens.
Mr.
President, please allow us to highlight a few elements based on UN Women's background note and informal briefing.
We recognize the efforts undertaken by UN women to maintain and improve protection from CAF systems in these challenging times, including its continued dedication to strengthening interagency collaboration and protection from CAA.
While the appointment of protection from CAF focal points is a positive development, dedicated expertise remains limited, particularly at field level.
We encourage UN women to protect and adequately resource dedicated protection from CAF capacity despite ongoing funding constraints.
Safe, accessible, and survivor centered reporting and assistance mechanisms must be preserved, especially as financial pressures may heighten vulnerabilities and place additional strain on referral pathways.
How is UN women addressing reporting barriers and ensuring continued protection and support services for survivors? We note that in 2025, the proportion of partners assessed on protection from SAA capacity under program partner agreements increased from 67% to 82%, which is a significant improvement.
What measures is UN women taking to ensure that all implementing partners are assessed on protection from CAA and risk management capacity and what actions follow if capacity is insufficient.
We also welcome the launch of the misconduct disclosure scheme across four settings.
What lessons are emerging and when does UN women expect to decide on full implementation of the scheme.
We look forward to continued dialogue in support of UN women's work on protection from SAA.
Thank you.
I thank the distinguished delegates of the United Kingdom.
May I now invite the Secretariat for the response.
The continuity of the Thank you.
Thank you so much, Mr.
President.
I will provide some reflections to this excellent statement from a group statement presented by the delegate from United Kingdom.
Then I will also ask my colleagues, Sarah Hendricks, from program and perspective, Prasun Skraporte compliment, as well as Miushis who is the UN system focal point for women in UN women and is very ably coordinating all of our efforts in the executive group preventing and addressing sexual harassment.
Just to start on the funding issue.
Yes, there are funding constraints, but this is why it's ever more important and I would just reiterate your points, what you said.
The collaboration, looking at which are the most effective actions, making sure that we are taking those and working closely across the system is critical.
You have 100%, I would say 150% commitment from you and women to do that.
We are really going to be ensuring and we are ensuring that the capacities and sustained financing to address PSEH remain an organizational priority in line with the strategic plan.
So this includes supporting our network of the focal points, who in fact are playing a vital role engaging with the communities and providing the victim survivor centered approach and coordinating efforts with our interagency partners at the country level.
Sarah can perhaps elaborate more on that, but I think it's important to know that most of our focal points, in fact, are also experts on eliminating violence against women and girls.
That's also important programmatic perspective and places our focal points to play a very important role.
Leadership, absolutely.
You can rest assured that UN women leadership is absolutely behind this critical agenda and will do everything possible in its power to make sure that we are advancing as actually is demonstrated, I would say, also through our active contribution to the various interagency processes.
Now, critically important, of course, to recognize that prevention response and the victim survivor support they need to be appropriately tailored to the needs and rights of children and young people.
We are in the process of finalizing our safeguarding of children and young people policy from this perspective.
The policy is really reinforcing our duty of care to prevent and reduce risk of harm to children and young people engaging with the personnel operations and activities while setting out the safeguarding principles.
We very much recognize the common approach to PSEA and SH as a very valuable resource, and we deeply appreciate the promotion of coherent and coordinated action to prevent and respond to SEAH across humanitarian development and peace settings.
This is why we are also taking an active role in the UN system wide harmonization efforts to update the Secretary-General strategy on protection from SEA and the special measures on SEA policy.
In terms of what are the next steps in the piloting and then expanding the misconduct disclosure scheme.
So far we have, as I mentioned, introduced it in four settings.
The Afghanistan, Haiti, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and the humanitarian section that is based in Geneva.
We just started these pilots this year, and we are planning to expand the pilot to additional country offices based on the lessons learned and capacity requirements.
I cannot yet as we only started earlier this year, I cannot yet tell you the lessons learned, but we will certainly come back to you at the very latest in the annual session next year under this agenda item.
I also would just like to again underline that we are already in fact reinforcing the efforts that we have taken as an organization through an annual certification exercise, through which the executive directors requires all country representative and regional directors to appoint the focal points and to support the PSEH responsibilities.
We from our side, from headquarters, we continue to ensure that the focal point capacities and sustainable financing remains an organizational priority.
Mr.
President, if you allow, I'll stop here and perhaps we can ask our other colleagues to compliment if appropriate if time allows.
So the floor.
Thank you so much, Mr.
President and indeed, thank you to the honorable delegate from the United Kingdom and on behalf of the group of countries for your important points as well as the framing of questions that you've made around how UN Women supports and address underlying reporting barriers, ensuring support services for victims and survivors of violence.
Allow me to emphasize here that indeed, this is the core of UN women's work right across our impact area on ending violence against women.
We have and continue to implement a comprehensive approach on prevention, but also addressing the needs and the rights of victims and survivors of violence through a number of critical mechanisms.
Number one is we undertake operational activities translating normative gains and policy gains into practical on the ground delivery, particularly through survivor centered services through what is called the Essential Services package.
As you may know, the essential services package provides a comprehensive package of supports to survivors of violence right across the countries that UN Women works with and through and in support of government priorities and also in partnership with the UN system.
We also engage to ensure that this work to support survivors and create the conditions for greater pathways of reporting is strengthened through prevention.
We do this via the respect framework.
This is a evidence based strategy that strengthens women with relationship skills, with empowerment, with services, with also more broader environmental safety, as well as a transformation of social norms and attitude change within their communities and their homes.
In addition, we strengthen women's pathways to engage in reporting on violence against women through greater sexual harassment reduction in our safe cities and safe global spaces global initiative.
As you can see, we see the contextual realities of where women experience violence to be an important measure here.
UN Women is proud to have established a strong relationship with police and with judicial services through our gender responsive policing initiative, engaging policing leadership as well as broader protection and judicial services for women on the ground, to strengthen comprehensive and integrated survivor packages of support through essential services, but also to strengthen the response mechanisms of police and of women's interface, noting that less than one in ten women actually do report violence right now.
We see these as holistic multi pillar interventions that really address the legal, the prevention, the survivor support, but coupled with data and investments into women's movements and women's rights organizations on the ground as the most effective way to strengthen reporting and much better than siloed projects or programs.
We see this borne up in data and in our evaluation findings, noting the imperative of mobilizing national and global partnerships.
I think it is the emphasis on referral mechanisms that enable women's access to information and available services, to legal aid and accompanying of survivors together with overall legal and policy frameworks to ensure that violence against women is criminalized and that standards exist, including operational procedures for the justice and police sectors.
We see our role in capacity strengthening of those sectors to deal with survivors as being of prominent importance across this work.
I hope that provides you with more awareness of the way in which UN Women works comprehensively to strengthen and support not only services for women and girls, but to ensure that these are rights based, to ensure that these are holistic, and to ensure that these are following through the overall commitments on PSEAH.
Thank you so much.
Pan, you have the floor.
Thank you, Mr.
President.
D D Mary had actually responded to most of the points raised during the statement, but I just wanted to add a couple of specific points which were raised.
One was regarding how we will report on the implementation of the GIU recommendations and the comprehensive assessment.
That the reporting on the progress would be actually done through the SG's report on SCA.
Of course, you and Woman will continue to report on that.
Uh, through our annual session, as well as the executive directors undertaking to the executive board.
So we will have reporting directly as well through our annual sessions, but it will also be included in the SG's report and SCA coordinated with the Office of the Special Coordinator, of course.
Uh, we heard my colleague, Sarah Hendricks talk about the under reporting barriers, which was also specific to our partners.
But when we talk about our internal staff and personal, That's also an element where we are working and to maintain the trust in our reporting mechanisms.
We have been continue to strengthen awareness in terms of where to report, how to report, and I think as we have noted in our background note, more than 90% of our personnel have reported through the 2025 UN PSA Perception Survey that they are fully aware of how and where to report on SEA and SH.
We have, as you've heard also during the course of the sessions, independent functions, which provide guidance to colleagues and support personnel through the investigation function, the ethics function, as well as the Office of the ombudsman.
These pathways are always available to colleagues and personal encouraging them to report, as well as we have robust protection against retaliation policies and mechanisms to ensure that any such report, while it's being reviewed, investigated, we are also ensuring that there is robust mechanisms to ensure any whistleblower protection as well as protection against retaliation.
I just thought I'll add those three points and that's it for me.
Thanks.
I thank the Secretariat for the responses rather.
I see no further requests for interventions.
Yeah.
You have the floor.
Thank you, Mr.
President.
I would like to elaborate on the system wide coordination and collaboration we are facilitating on addressing sexual harassment.
The executive group to prevent and respond to sexual harassment with 37 member entities has become a key mechanism to sustain leadership commitment to prevent and respond to sexual harassment.
It facilitates the pooling of resources, which has become even more relevant now in a time of fiscal constraints.
Work continues to evolve.
It learns from previous years workstreams to address areas that were hitherto not an emerging area and it has the agility to adapt to changing contexts.
As DD Mary mentioned, UN Women invested resources in the creation of the UN system wide Knowledge hub on addressing sexual harassment, a key deliverable of the workstream we led the past two years.
The hub is generating efficiencies, reducing duplication, and consolidating resources in one place.
It serves now as the central repository for guidance and tools on preventing and responding to sexual harassment and will now have tools and resources on addressing technology facilitated sexual harassment.
It is increasingly becoming the main entry point for UN entities seeking support in this area with 20,000 clicks in a single month.
This year, as De De Mary also mentioned, UN Women and UNFPA are collaborating in co leading the workstream on technology facilitated sexual harassment.
While this may be a new workstream in this executive group, it is not a new issue, as my colleague, Sarah Hendrix elaborated.
26 entities and offices, including the World Bank, are collaborating with us on this workstream.
UN Women and UNFPA will leverage their collective knowledge and experience through the workstream, identifying policies, practices, and approaches that can be adapted to the UN system, creating efficiencies, strengthening coherence, and coordination in this emerging area.
We also look forward to collaborating with private sector entities, including technology companies, again, leveraging the experiences and partnerships of both UN Women and UNFPA.
Thank you.
Thank you, Marise for the additional response.
Thank you.
Are there any other comments on the agenda? I no.
We can now move on to agenda item nine.
The board will receive a presentation on the report of the UN Women Executive Board field visit to Bolivia that took place 24-30 first March 2026.
I'm pleased to invite the representative of the Kyrgyzstan Republic to the United Nations to present the report on Executive Board's field visit to Bolivia.
From his seat or her seat.
Thank you.
Thank you, you have the floor.
Thank you, Mr.
President.
On behalf of the delegation of the UN Women Executive Board, I have the honor to present the report of the field visit to the Pluurra National State of Bolivia conducted 24-31, March 2026.
The full text of this report is available on the website of the Executive Board now.
The purpose of the visit was to provide the executive board with a better understanding of the impact of Hman women's work at the country level, how the entity leverages its triple mandate, and how it contributes to the implementation of Bolivia's national priorities and broader United Nations efforts.
Delegation met with senior government officials, members of the parliament, indigenous authorities, civil society organizations, private sector representatives, and the United Nations Country team.
The delegation also visited projects focused on ending violence against women and advancing women's economic empowerment in rural communities.
This visit was highly informative and a valuable tool for the executive board to perform its governance and oversight functions.
One of the key observations from the visit was the breadth and depth of women's engagement.
The Bolivia Country Office has developed networks and span from high level political actors and international partners to grassroots organizations and civil society groups.
Enables young women to play an important bridging role between the global normative frameworks and local input.
Implementation realities.
The delegation observed that Yuma women's presence is widely recognized and appreciated by beneficiaries and stakeholders.
Its engagement is perceived as legitimate, accessible, and responsive, reinforcing trust and the relevance of its work across diverse contexts.
The delegation also witnessed how women's legal, operational, and coordination mandates reinforce one another in practice.
The delegation saw strong evidence of young women's contribution to women's economic autonomy, women's leadership, and climate action.
The field further highlighted that young women remains uniquely positioned and effectively equipped to engage in policy dialogue and discussions concerning laws, policies, and standards related to gender equality.
Mr.
President, The delegation concludes that the field visits demonstrated Human Women's effective delivery of its triple mandate in Bolivia.
Finally, the delegation expresses its sincere gratitude to the government and people of Bolivia for their warm hospitality.
We also thank the Human Women Country Office, the Regional Office for Latin American Caribbean, the resident coordinator, the United Nations Country Team, and the Executive Board Secretariat for their excellent preparation and support throughout the mission.
Thank you.
I thank the representative of Kyrgysan Republic for that presentation.
I now open the floor for member states intervention with respect to the aforementioned agenda item.
You may indicate so by pressing the microphone in your desk.
I see no requests for interventions.
The Executive Board will now consider agenda item ten, namely other matters.
Does the board have anything to add? I see no requests for intervention.
As no additional issues have been brought to our attention, we move to the adoption of decisions.
For this item, Under this item, I would first like to invite the facilitator to read out the draft decision 2026 slash eight entitled, Annual Report of the Under Secretary-General Executive Director of the United Nations entity for Gender Equality and empowerment of women on the implementation of this Protective P 2022 to 2025 as negotiated MS to Tova.
I give you the floor.
Thank you, Mr.
President, for giving me the floor again.
First and foremost, I'd like to thank all delegation for their constructive and efficient engagement to reach the consensus on this decision.
Let me now read the text.
Decision 2026 lash eight, annual report of the Under Secretary-General, Executive Director of the United Nations Ante for Gender Equality and the empowerment of women on the implementation of the Strategic Plan 2022, 2025.
The Executive Board takes note with appreciation of the report of the Under Secretary-General Executive Director of the United Nations Antee for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women on progress made on the implementation of the Strategic Plan 2022, 2025, and commends you and women on the strong performance on the strategic plan 2022, 2025.
Recalls decision 2023 slash three and recognizes young women's continued contribution and its focused engagement within the United Nations development system to ensure that gender equality and women and girls empowerment continue to be an integral part of the sustainable development agenda.
Decides to transmit the report to the Economic and Social Council.
I thank you.
May I take it that the Executive Board wishes to adopt decision 2026 slash eight on the annual report.
I see no objections.
So sided.
Thank you very much, T B for your skill in negotiations as a facilitator.
Next, I would like to invite the facilitator to read out draft Decision 2026 slash nine entitled Report on evaluation function of the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and empowerment of women 2025 as negotiated.
Miss Dil Carag Dgl you have the floor.
I had the honor to facilitate the draft decision 2026 slash nine on the report on the evaluation function of the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the empowerment of women 2025.
Allow me first to thank all the delegations for their constructive engagement through the negotiations and the Secretariat for their presence and support in the room.
I'm glad to announce that we reached a consensus on this draft decision, and I will now read out the decision.
2026 slash nine report on the evaluation function of the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the empowerment of Women, 2025.
The Executive Board takes note of the 2025 report on the evaluation function of UN Women, the Corporate Evaluation Plan 2026 2029, and the Independent Evaluation Service 2026 Program of Work and Budget, acknowledges that UN Women maintains an independent, credible, and valuable evaluation function that contributes to system wide gender responsive evaluation initiatives and national evaluation capacity development, taking into account national plans, needs and priorities.
Take notes of the corporate evaluation of UN women's support to intergovernmental processes and notes with appreciation the strategically important contribution of UN women to the efforts of member states to advance global normative frameworks on gender equality and women's empowerment and requests the implementation of its recommendation.
Welcomes the progress and achievements of the evaluation function, including its continued adaptability and responsiveness to new and emerging global challenges.
Res decision 2025 slash six and requests UN Women to increase investments towards allocation of at least 2% and up to 3% of its total program expenditure to the evaluation function according to the targets set in the evaluation Policy 2020 and requests UN Women to continue to safeguard the independence of the Independent Evaluation Service and ensuring evaluation expertise in the Advisory Committee on oversight, ACU.
Encourages the Independent Evaluation Service to continue investing in innovative practices, including the responsible use of artificial intelligence and to share with the executive board information on measures taken to ensure the consistent application of related guidelines, as well as progress made in developing a mechanism to measure efficiency gains within the evaluation function as part of its annual report at its annual session 2027.
Encourages you and women to continue strengthening the capacity of the decentralized evaluation function, including through result based management and to provide targeted support to regional and country offices that are lagging behind in evaluation quality.
Recalls previous executive board's decision on the report of the evaluation function, takes note with appreciation of the progress made on key performance indicators of the evaluation function over the strategic plan 2022, 2025 period and requests UN Women to continue to report on and to maintain and improve performance across all key performance indicators of the evaluation function.
Requests UN women to integrate evaluation use and other key performance indicators of the evaluation function into strategic plan reporting as foreseen in the evaluation strategy 2026 2029 at the earliest opportunity and to report on progress at the annual session 2027, expresses continuing support for strengthening the evaluation function in UN women and the use of evaluation.
I thank you.
May I take it that the Executive Board wishes to adopt decision 2026 slash nine on evaluation? I see no objections, decided.
Thank you very much, Delay, for your skillful facilitation.
Next, I would like to invite the facilitator to read out draft decision 2026 slash ten, entitled Report on Internal Audit and Investigation activities for the period from first January to 31, December 2025 as negotiated.
Ambassador Gonzale, you have the floor.
Thank you, Mr.
President and thank you to all the constructive engagement from all the delegations which allowed for us to reach consensus on this decision.
2026 slash ten report on internal audit investigation activities for the period from one January to 31 December 2025.
The executive board, One, takes note of the report and related annexes on internal audit and investigation activities for the period from one January to 31 December 2025.
Paragraph two takes note of the Advisory Committee on oversights annual report.
Paragraph three takes note of the management response to these two reports.
Paragraph four takes note of the progress made by you and women in implementing audit recommendations and encourages you and women to ensure the timely implementation of long outstanding recommendations.
Paragraph five recalls decisions 2024 slash five and 2025 slash seven and encourages UN women to ensure adequate, sustainable and long term funding of UN women's internal audit and investigation functions.
Paragraph six, notes heightened risk to second and third line of defense functions due to financial constraints and encourages UN women to ensure that governance, risk management, and control functions are adequately resourced, particularly in light of ongoing reform efforts.
Paragraph seven expresses its continued support for strengthening the UN women's internal audit and investigation functions and reiterates the importance of their full independence and direct access to the executive board.
Thank you.
May I take it that the Executive Board wishes to adopt decision 2026 slash 11 an audit.
I see no objections is so decided.
Thank you very much, Ambassador, for your experience and skillful negotiation.
Next, I would like to invite the facilitator to read out draft Decision 2026 slash 12 entitled, Annual Report on the ethics function as negotiated.
Mr.
Paul Waldeman the floor zero.
Thank you, Mr.
President.
I had indeed the privilege to facilitate the following decision, and I'm happy also to report that consensus was reached within the room.
2026 slash nine annual report on the activities of the UN Woman Ethics function.
The executive board, paragraph one takes note of the report on the activities of the UN Woman ethics function for the period one January through 31, December 25.
Paragraph two takes note of the management response to this report.
Paragraph three recalls decision 2023 slash ten, 2024 slash six, and 2025 slash eight and reiterates the importance of the sustainable and independent implementation of the ethics functions mandate.
Paragraph four, takes note of the review of alternative models to deliver the ethics functions as raised by the Advisory Committee on oversight and requests you and Woman to inform the Executive Board of relevant developments at the annual session 2027.
I thank you.
May I take it that the Executive Board wishes to adopt the decision 2026 slash 11 on ethics I see no objections decided.
Thank you very much, Paul.
Next, I would like to invite the facilitator to read out draft Decision 2026 slash 12 entitled, Implementation of General Assembly Resolution 72 slash 279 on the repositioning of the United Nations weapons System as negotiated.
MS Anila Divazi you have the floor.
Thank you, Mr.
President.
I would also like to start by thanking all the delegations for the constructive spirit during the negotiations, as well as the Secretariat for the valuable presence in the room.
Without further ado, I will start with the doubt of the decision I had the honor to facilitate.
Decision 2026 slash 12, implementation of General Assembly Resolution 72 slash 279 on the repositioning of the United Nations Development System.
The Executive Board welcomes the update provided by the UN Women on the implementation of General Assembly Resolution 79 slash 279 and related mandates concerning the repositioning of the United Nations developing System in the context of the quadra comprehensive policy review of operational activities for development of the United Nations system.
Takes notes of the progress made in implementing the United Nations Development System reform checklist, which is included as an annex to the update and recalling its decision 2027 25 slash nine requests that the remaining areas of uneven progress be addressed.
Recalls its decision 2022 slash 62024 slash seven and 2025 slash nine and requests UN Women to take further steps to ensure that the strategic notes are derived from the United Nations Sustainable Development Cooperation framework, including informing the resident coordinators in a timely manner of new programs and financial agreements signed to implement the strategic notes in line with the management and accountability framework.
Recall decision 2025 slash nine and request UN women to intensify its efforts to contribute to system wide and interagency efficiencies, including through expanding the use of global shared services, common back offices, and common premises, prioritizing the most cost effective and resource efficient efforts and to report within existing reporting on the challenges UN women faces to implement these efforts, particularly at the country level.
Request UN women in the implementation of United Nations development system reforms to ensure that efficiency measures and country configuration processes strengthen country level delivery and preserve Monday specific technical capacities, particularly in least developed countries, landlocked developing countries, small island developing states, and countries in situations of conflict and post conflict countries.
Recalls decision 2024 slash seven and 2025 slash nine reaffirms the strong commitment to the United Nations Development system reform and in this regard welcomes UN women's commitment to SAD reform and the resident coordinator system and encourages UN women to fully leverage its comparative advantage and system wide coordination mandate in implementing reform processes.
Recalls decision 2025 slash nine takes notes of the work done by UN Women in its capacity as the Secretariat of the UN system wide Gender Equality Acceleration Plan and requests UN women to continue supporting the acceleration of gender equality, including at the level of resident coordinators and United Nations country team configurations in coordination with the United System.
Welcomes the alignment of the UN Women Strategic Plan 2026 2029 with the adernial comprehensive policy review and the inclusion of common and complementary indicators in the updated Integrated Results and resources framework.
The request the UN Women to continue to work with other United Nations entities to increase joint programming and strengthen coherence across the United Nations system.
Encourages UN women to use the findings of the system wide evaluation on progress towards a new generation of United Nations country teams and requests the UN women to provide the executive board at the annual session of 2027, further explanation of the rationale for partial acceptance of S recommendation 1.2 and what steps UN Women has taken to enhance sharing of work planning and resource mobilization information with UN CTs and what system wide conditions UN women consider necessary to enable such broaden sharing.
I thank you.
May I take it that the Executive Board wishes to adopt De 2026 slash 12 on the implementation of General Assembly Resolution 72 slash 279 on the requisitioning of the United Nations Denment System.
I see no objections.
Decided.
Thank you very much, Anela for facilitating this decision.
Next, I would like to invite the facilitator to read our draft decision 2026 slash 13, entitled Update on UN Women Policies and Procedures.
To tackle sexual exploitation and abuse and sexual harassment as negotiated.
Madam MS, Brenda, Gongo Padilla, Landmark, I give you the floor and please try to speak at a regulated pace so the interpreters could keep pace with you.
Thank you very much.
Thank you, Mr.
President.
I wish to thank all the delegations involved for the constructive spirit and I'm very glad to report that we reached consensus on this decision.
This is your draft 2026 slash 13, update on UN Women policies and procedures to tackle sexual exploitation and abuse and sexual harassment.
One, takes note of the written update on UN women policies and procedures to tackle sexual exploitation and abuse and sexual harassment.
Two, encourage UN women management to ensure dedicated, adequate, and sustainable staffing expertise and funding to prevent and respond to sexual exploitation and abuse and sexual harassment.
Three, request future annual updates to the executive board to focus further on results and impact of measures taken and systems in place.
Four, request you and women to continue to increase the effectiveness and efficiency of prevention, protection, and response efforts through interagency and system wide collaboration, including through conducting joint assessments and capacity building of implementing partners and joint community engagement.
Five, request you and women with firm commitment and support from leadership to continue to strengthen efforts to ensure a victim slash survivor centered system wide and coherent approach to the prevention of and respond to sexual exploitation and abuse and sexual harassment.
Six, requests decision 2023 slash seven and 2024 slash eight on piloting the misconduct disclosure scheme.
Welcomes its piloting by UN women and requests the agency to report at its annual session in 2027 on results and lessons learned from implementation and use of the scheme and to encourage wider adoption by other UN entities.
I thank you.
May I take it that the Executive Board wishes to adopt Decision 2026 slash 13 on policies and procedures to tackle sexual exploitation and abuse and sexual harassment? I see no objections.
This decided.
Thank you very much, Brenda, for facilitating this decision skillfully.
Next, I would like to invite the facilitator to read out draft Decision 2026 slash 14, entitled IU Review of Governance and Oversight of the Executive Boards of UNDP slash UNFPA slash UNOPS UNICEF and UN Women as negotiated.
Mr.
Marvin Econ, you have the floor.
Thank you, Chair.
I am happy to report that we also reached a consensus on this decision.
I want to thank you all delegations for your constructive engagement, and I will now read the decision.
Decision 2026 slash 14 IU review of governance and oversight of the executive boards of UNDP, UNFPA, UNOS, UNICEF, and UN Women.
The Executive Board recalls its decision, 2024 slash three, in which the Executive Board decided to participate in a joint working group to consider the Joint Inspection Unit report titled Review of Governance and Oversight of the Executive Board of the UNDP, UN Population Fund, UN Office for Project Services, the United Nations Children's Fund, and the United Nations entity, for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women, GIU slash REP slash 2023 slash, with the participation of the Executive Boards of the United Nations Development Program, United Nations Population Fund, United Nations Office for Project Services, and the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women, UN Women.
Two, also recalls that in the same decision, the executive board requested the joint working group to provide regular updates to the participating executive boards as necessary, starting after the first regular session of 2025.
Three, welcomes the update and interim report of the joint working group on the joint inspection unit review presented at the annual session of 2026.
Four, recalls its decisions 2025 slash 15 and 2026 slash two and reiterates the requests contained therein.
Five, As to review the proposals of the joint working group for the implementation of the Joint inspection unit recommendations contained in the interim report and takes note of the possibility for executive board members and observers to provide feedback in writing to the joint working group by first July 2026.
Six, request the Secretariat in collaboration with the Secretariat of the participating executive boards to schedule a joint informal briefing no later than mid July 2026, wherein the joint working group and the participating executive boards can discuss the proposals for the implementation of the Joint inspection unit recommendations contained in the interim report.
Lastly, seven reiterates its request to the joint working group to submit elements of a draft decision for the independent consideration of the participating executive boards at their respective second regular sessions of 2026.
I thank you, Chair.
May I check here that the Executive Board wishes to adopt decision 2026 slash 14 on the JIU I see no objections decided.
Thank you very much, Marvin, for facilitating the second decision.
Next, I would like to invite the facilitator to read out draft Decision 2026 slash 15, entitled Engagement with UN eight Initiative as negotiated.
Mr.
Bastian Hauerman, you have the floor.
Thank you, Mr.
President.
I had the privilege to facilitate this draft decision 2020 6-15 on the Engagement with the UNAT initiative.
Allow me first to thank all the delegation for their constructive engagement and the Secretariat for their precious help.
I'm happy to announce that we reached consensus.
I will now read out the decision.
The executive board One, notes with appreciation the efforts by UN Women on the UN AT initiative and reiterates the importance of an adequately resourced, relevant, coherent, efficient and effective United Nations system.
Two, also takes note of the information provided as part of the strategic merger assessment of UNFPA and UN Women final consolidated report and its annexes.
Three, affirms that any structural proposal regarding UN woman should aim to generate tangible savings in structural and administrative costs and strengthen operational delivery of existing mandates.
Four, stresses that entity specific merger discussions should not be considered in isolation from the broader UN 80 reform work, including in a United Nations country team reconfiguration, the regional reset, the expertise on demand mechanism, and funding mechanisms as they directly impact the entities ability to deliver on its tribal mandate at the country level.
Five, reiterates its request in decision 2026 slash six, in which it emphasizes that documentation related to the UNAT initiative and its implementation should be shared with the executive board as soon as it becomes available and no later than three weeks prior to any formal or informal session to allow sufficient time for its consideration.
Six recalls General Assembly Resolution 79 slash 318 and 80 slash 155 and reaffirms the central role of member states in the reform process which should be inclusive, evidence based, and transparent and in that sense, calls on UN woman to actively engage with members and observers of the executive board.
Seven further recalls General Assembly resolutions 48 slash 162 and 50 slash 227 and reaffirms the executive board's responsibility within its mandate to consider and recommend any proposed structural changes to United Nations entities under its governance.
While following the existing legal framework, as well as established procedural steps and in this regard to issue a recommendation on the potential merger or alternative options through a decision to be transmitted to the Economic and Social Council and through the Council to the General Assembly as necessary before a decision on a potential merger is scheduled for consideration by the General Assembly.
Eight emphasizes that in order to fulfill this responsibility, the executive board must be in possession of all such information as it deems relevant, including alternative options to the potential merger and in this respect notes that the information provided thus far is insufficient.
Nine, commits to continuing its constructive engagement with the potential merger and alternative options with a view to providing a well informed recommendation on them as the requested information becomes available in a timely manner.
Ten underscores the critical importance of system wide coherence for the delivery of mandates and stresses the relevance of country level programs and projects for the implementation of the UNAT initiative.
11 strongly emphasizes that any statutoral reform must safeguard the integrity of the triple mandate of UN women as conferred by all the relevant United Nations bodies.
12 further takes note of the legal elements on the potential merger of UN Women and UNFPA, provided by the Legal Office of UN Women, which states in that there is no specific legal mechanism available to guarantee the continuity of existing mandates, which therefore may be adjusted or redefined at the time of a merger or thereafter.
13 also takes note of the internal UNFPA legal advice, which indicates that there are risks for the integrity of the mandates of the two entities in case of a merger.
14 recalls its request contained in paragraph eight of decision 20266 for the Secretary-General to seek and share with members and observers of the executive board a legal opinion from the Office of Legal Affairs of the Secretariat on the outcome of the merger assessment with regard to implementation modalities governance requirements and mandate preservation and further request a written update from you and woman on this issue in advance of the second regular session in 2026 under this agenda item.
15, note that since the information provided is currently insufficient, the executive board is not in a position to make a recommendation of support for a potential merger between UN FDA and UN Women at this time, and alleging that the protection of mandates cannot be guaranteed but remains committed to engage constructively with the UN AT initiative and request outstanding evidence, analysis, and information to fully address decision 0.20 26-6 paragraph nine, as well as any additional analysis identified as necessary, including in earlier.
A, provision of alternative options to a merger for enhanced alignment, impact, and efficiency to the executive board as a matter of priority at least six weeks before the second regular session 2026.
B, further elaboration on operational models regarding a potential merger and alternative options with particular attention to the added value, anticipated efficiencies, and expected impact on operational results and delivery with respect to their existing mandates.
C, provision of further details on the anticipated costs associated with a potential merger and alternative options.
Including disaggregated and verifiable onetime implementation and transition costs, recurrence costs, anticipated savings, and impact on human resources, together with assumptions used to derive such estimates and to clearly identify resources that could be mobilized to cover this cost.
D, provision of information and analysis on the impact at the country regional and programmatic levels, including operational implementation and delivery, country office configuration in each region, mandate specific technical capacities and responsiveness to national priorities.
E, provision of summaries of stakeholders consultations as relevant.
I thank you.
May I take it that the Executive Board wishes to adopt Decision 2026 slash 15 on New and 80.
I see no objections.
It's decided.
Thank you so much, Bastian, for facilitating the decision.
I thank all the distinguished delegations for your diligence and constructive efforts in achieving consensus.
I congratulate you all.
We now move to agenda item one, namely organizational matters to address the approval of the provisional agenda and work plan for the second regular session 2026.
In this respect, I will invite the Secretary of the Executive Board to outline the agenda as contained in UNW slash 2026 slash CRP dot, Mr.
Secretary.
You have the floor.
Yeah.
Thank you very much, Mr.
President.
As you mentioned, the second regular session of the executive board will start on the 9th of September with the consideration of the adoption and annotated the outdated program agenda and work plan of the second regular session 2026, as well as the report of the annual session 2026.
Following the adoption of these reports, the session will continue with official opening statements by you, Mr.
President, as well as the Executive Director.
The Executive Director will include in her remarks an update on agenda item two on engagement with the UNAT initiative.
Then the floor will be open as always for member states interventions.
Once the speaker's list for this agenda item will be exhausted, the board will suspend its plenary session at 1:00 P.M.
And reserve the rest of the time for the lunch for informal consultation on draft decisions.
At 3:00 P.M.
The executive board will turn to item three on the structured dialogue on financing, where it will be presented with the report on the structured dialogue on financing, the results of the UN UN strategic P 2022, 2025.
After this agenda item, the executive board will reserve the rest of the day for informal consultation on draft decisions.
The following day on Thursday, the 10th of September, the board will continue with item four, on the GIU review of governance and oversight of the executive boards of UNDP, UNFPA, UN OPS, UNICEF and UN Women to receive an update on the progress made so far.
The board will then address item five, other matters followed by the adoption of draft decisions.
After the adoption of decisions, the board will return to agenda item one on organizational matters and consider for approval the provisional agenda and work plan for the first regular session of 2027.
The second regular session 2026 will conclude, Mr.
President, with your remarks, as well as the remark of the Executive Director.
I thank you, Mr.
President.
Thank you, Mr.
Secretary.
The floor is open for any of your comments, questions, and observations.
I see none.
May I take it that the executive board wishes to approve the provisional agenda and work plan of the second regular session 2026.
I see no objections is decided.
At this Okay.
At this juncture, may I now give the floor to the ED, Kisi Mary.
Thank you very much, Mr.
President.
I just wanted to take the opportunity before your closing remarks to, first of all, thank you, Mr.
President and all the vice presidents for steering us through this very, very important session.
I also would like to thank all the members and observers of the executive board for your very strong support that you have expressed over the past three days to you and women to our mandate.
This is more needed now than ever before.
I thank you for your very insightful questions, your guidance, and I want to particularly thank the facilitators for the skillful facilitation and all the delegates for the flexibility for your participation.
I know the negotiation have gone late to the night, but also for your flexibility that you have been able to adopt these decisions.
And in that vein, I also would like to just reiterate and appreciate the strong call that you have made for flexible and predictable funding for UN women.
This is more critical than ever to ensure that we are able indeed to implement the important decisions that you have adopted just now.
I also would like to just take the opportunity to thank my UN women colleagues who have contributed to this annual session and to all of our colleagues globally who continue to drive forward our critical mandate of gender equality and women's empowerment with strong commitment and dedication.
And lastly, thanks to the Executive Board Secretariat, to the conference services, and to the interpreters for all the support.
Thank you, Mr.
President.
Thank you, Casey, for your remarks.
I now give the floor to the ED Narnia Gumbvand Paul, you have the floor.
Thank you.
Thank you so much.
Your Excellency, the President of the Board, the Executive Board of H and Women.
My colleague De Casey, I join you in your words of appreciation to our executive board.
This executive board, like any other board, continues to nourish us as you and women.
As you provide advice, as you provide guidance, as you oversee our work, provide the necessary oversight, and also provide the insights into our implementation of the mandate and of the strategic plan of U and women.
We are so grateful for the insights of this session for the emphasis that you have continued to provide on the importance of our triple mandate, the importance of evaluations, the importance of coordination, and the importance of country level work.
We take very strongly and very clearly the decisions that you have made, and we will strive to work hard to achieve and work towards the commitments that you have provided to us.
I equally extend and join my colleague semdi in expressing our deep appreciation to our teams, inclusion Luke and your team, and equally to our teams across the world, the UN women teams across the world who are following this board and who we know are equally committed to the implementation of the decisions.
We look forward to the board in September.
You've already shared the agenda.
In our minds, we are already preparing the details of that agenda.
I wish you the very best.
Again, thank you so much, Mr.
President and our esteemed executive board.
Thank you.
Thank you, Deputy Executive Director, an sai, for your comments.
Excellencies, distinguished delegates, colleagues.
We have come to the end of a very productive and enlightening annual session.
I'm very pleased to see that we have managed to successfully consider the entire items on the agenda in a very efficient manner without compromising on the quality of the discussions in the session.
Throughout the session, we focused.
We had very focused, interactive, and rich discussions on each agenda item.
I congratulate all of you.
We congratulate ourselves, all of us.
I would like to thank again our Bureau members, the vice presidents and the experts for their excellent support during and in the lead up to the session.
I especially wish to thank the delegations of Albania, Belgium, the Dominican Republic, Kyrgysan, Sweden, Switzerland, and Uganda for their very skillful facilitation during this annual session.
Your hard work is truly appreciated.
I wish to also thank profoundly the executive board members and observers for their constructive engagement and contributions as well as their flexibility during the negotiations.
I would also like to thank the Secretary of Executive Board, Mr.
Jaluok, Boris and his team for providing all our support, all the support to us and me, other members of the board, and all our delegations.
Over the past three days, we have had several briefings from the Secretariat colleagues, and I must acknowledge the quality of the presentations were extremely rich.
I would like to congratulate in absentia, the executive director, as well as all other briefings from the UN Women Secretariat.
For their hard work and effort in ensuring the high quality of our deliberations.
On this positive note, once again, thank you all for your cooperation, collaboration, and support in making this a very successful session.
I I wish to declare closed the annual session 2026 of the UN Women Executive Board.
The, the session is adjourned.