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Statement by William O. Brisben, U.S. Representative to
the UNICEF Executive Board Meeting, on the Report of the
Executive Director, During the UNICEF Executive Board
Meeting, January 13, 2003
Thank you, Mr. President,
And thank you, Ms. Bellamy, for an excellent
report—concise, analytical, and illuminating of the
strides taken by UNICEF and other UN agencies during 2002
to implement the operational segment of the
Secretary-General’s reform program.
The United States takes this
opportunity to commend UNICEF for its important
contributions to the evolving mechanisms being developed
to coordinate, simplify, and harmonize program planning,
evaluation procedures, and implementation and reporting
practices.
I turn first to program planning.
The United States approves of the
measures taken to strengthen the
CCA/UNDAF process. These
included: the newly revised CCA/UNDAF guidelines;
systematic support and training of country teams; strong
internal communication among country offices, New York,
and regional offices; and consistent monitoring by the
UNDG Programme Group, chaired by UNICEF in 2002.
We look forward to “second
generation” CCAs and UNDAFs as essential cornerstones for
effective program coordination among the UNDG agencies,
and cite UNICEF’s leadership. We anticipate that the new
format for UNICEF country notes presented later this year
will strongly reflect the CCA/UNDAF process.
UNICEF reports that during the past
year it met with the World Bank to explore greater
strategic collaboration within shared priorities and the
larger net of programmatic frameworks, including the
international targets of the
Millennium Declaration, the
PRSP(Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper), CCA/UNDAF and the
UNICEF MTSP. The joint decision to adopt the international
goals of the Millennium Declaration as a common framework
providing focus and streamlining cooperation was, in the
view of the United States, well taken.
Considering the evaluation process—
We commend UNICEF for assuming the
chair of a new inter-agency working group looking at
standardizing United Nations norms and procedures for
evaluations. With IMEP already in place on the country
level and
UNICEF’s database of research and evaluations
newly available on the Internet, UNICEF is well positioned
to share its experience with other UN agencies and to
support the development of national and regional
evaluation associations.
The Executive Director reports that
UNICEF has also taken part in activities aimed at
simplifying and harmonizing the rules and procedures of
program implementation and reporting.
The Fund prepared the ground for this
internally by setting up reference groups for
consultations at headquarters and in the field. At the
same time, UNICEF participated in the
OECD/DAC Task Force
on Donor Practices, which considers ways to harmonize the
reporting practices of OECD members, UNDG members, and the
World Bank in order to ensure better fit with program
countries’ priorities and systems. The United States
believes that this complex but worthy undertaking is on
the right track with its emphasis on “best practices” and
national ownership.
On
other matters as well, UNICEF has taken good advantage of
opportunities for interagency coordination. For example,
as co-chair of the Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC)
Reference Group on Gender and also as co-chair of the
Inter-Agency Task Force on Protection from Sexual
Exploitation and Abuse, UNICEF is leading the effort to
monitor implementation of the Plan of Action to prevent
sexual abuse and exploitation in humanitarian crises,
identifying necessary follow-up measures and developing
training and awareness materials for staff and
beneficiaries. UNICEF’s leadership and efforts to address
this issue have helped set the standard for other
organizations to meet.
The Executive Director’s report
concludes with a table showing congruence among the
international development goals contained in the
Millennium Declaration, the priority areas of “A World Fit
for Children,” and the five organizational priorities of
UNICEF’s 2002-5 Medium Term Strategic Plan (MTSP).
UNICEF’s MTSP appears to be right on target.
However, UNICEF will need sufficient
regular core resources to meet its MTSP targets. The
Executive Director’s Report estimates for 2002 only modest
increases in contributions from governments.
In
2002, the United States increased its contribution to core
resources from 110 million dollars to 120 million dollars,
an increase of over 8%. While our budget process prevents
us from making multi-year pledges, the Administration
requested from our Congress an equivalent sum of $120
million in 2003, for which we hope to see the final
results shortly. Each year, we contribute an additional
$100-- $130 million to “other resources” for emergency and
specific targeted programs benefiting children and
mothers.
We ask member states to join with us
in increasing their voluntary contributions to regular
core resources so that UNICEF can meet the goals we have
set for it.
At the same time, we must be mindful
that expanding famine and rising HIV/AIDS infection rates
scourge southern Africa and the Horn of Africa, spreading
human misery, wrecking economies by depleting the work
force, and creating millions of orphans. The sub-region
is headed toward crisis, and its future is in jeopardy.
These children and their mothers need food for survival,
but also therapeutic feeding and nutritional supplements,
immunizations and health care, potable water, sanitation,
access to education, protection and social services—-which
we expect UNICEF to provide. We must also find ways to
increase contributions for all of the African countries in
special need.
UNICEF, for its part, needs to
improve its capacity to assess the requirements of these
emergencies in terms of dollars and human resources in
order to justify their appeals. Time-phased action plans
would be helpful, not only in addressing crises and their
aftermath, but also in other areas such as establishing
vaccine security and combating HIV/AIDS.
On another subject, I take great
satisfaction in announcing that the
United States
deposited on December 23 the instruments of its
ratification of the two optional protocols to the
Convention on the Rights of the Child, On
Children in
Armed Conflict and On the
Sale of Children, Child
Prostitution, and Child Pornography.
Child victims of armed conflict and
commercial sexual exploitation desperately need the
world’s attention. The United States advocates the widest
possible acceptance and ratification of these historic
protocols so that they speak for the entire world
community.
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