"Excellencies, distinguished delegates, colleagues,
"It is a pleasure to welcome you to the first regular session of the UNICEF Executive Board for 2026. I would like to extend my congratulations to the President and Vice-Presidents of the Board, and my sincere appreciation to the Bureau for your leadership and continued engagement. We value your guidance, your oversight, and your partnership.
"To say that we are meeting at a moment of significant transition, for the world, for the multilateral system, and for UNICEF is quite an understatement.
"In the last year, we have seen challenges to the future of the multilateral system, to the value and effectiveness of international aid, and ultimately to the world's collective responsibility to care for those most in need, especially children. The world is changing rapidly and that change is not temporary. The challenges facing children are immense, becoming ever more complex, more constrained, and more polarized.
"Together we must ensure that UNICEF remains effective, trusted, and focused on delivering results for children, particularly those living in the most fragile and crisis-affected settings. And of course, how we responsibly manage the risks we face every single day.
"Over the coming days, you will consider a full agenda that reflects both our ambition and our accountability.
"This includes updates on humanitarian action and UN reform; the essential role of evaluations to drive continuous improvement; and strategic discussions on finance, partnerships and governance.
"We will take critical decisions on country programme documents and hear from a panel of experts on several of the CPDs. I would like to emphasize here that UNICEF country program documents are carefully negotiated with Member States.
"They are essential for ensuring accountability - between UNICEF and Government partners, and between UNICEF and the Executive Board. They are also consistent with broader Cooperation Frameworks, while adding critical detail and commitment in specific programme areas. I appreciate your careful attention to these essential documents.
"The CPD discussion this session will focus on health.
"Despite remarkable progress on child survival over the last three decades, 2025 could be the first year this century where child deaths will have increased, reversing generations of progress.
"Child and maternal health continue to be key priorities for UNICEF. Our new Centre of Excellence in Nairobi focuses on child survival. It brings together our technical assets in health, nutrition and WASH to provide top level expertise and knowledge to countries burdened with high levels of child and maternal mortality.
"Excellencies,
"As you know, the global environment for children remains extraordinarily difficult. Conflict, climate shocks, economic instability and inequality place enormous pressure on children, families and communities.
"The humanitarian situation facing children today is among the most severe we have ever seen. More than 200 million children across over 130 countries need humanitarian assistance in 2026.
"Last year saw the highest number of verified grave violations against children on record. These violations include horrendous acts such as killings, abductions, and sexual violence. At the same time, famine re-emerged in 2025, when two famines were declared simultaneously - an unprecedented and deeply alarming development.
"Beyond these formal famine declarations, millions more children suffer from malnutrition and are living one shock away from life-threatening catastrophe.
"Yet even as needs grow, we see resources shrink.
"Abrupt, severe funding cuts are forcing impossible choices across humanitarian operations - which lives do we prioritize as we limit supplies, reduce the frequency of services, and scale back interventions that children depend on to survive.
"Despite these constraints, UNICEF continues to deliver. Last year, our teams and partners responded to emergencies across more than 100 countries, reaching tens of millions of children with lifesaving health care, nutrition, immunization, education, protection, and safe water and sanitation. We do this at a global scale because we are present before crises strike, because we work through national and local systems, and because we have decades of experience in saving children's lives.
"This is why UNICEF is sharpening its humanitarian focus - prioritizing the most vulnerable children, investing in preparedness and anticipatory action, and strengthening the systems that protect children before crises escalate.
"We are strengthening partnerships, working through UN80 and the Humanitarian Reset to pool common services, to combine efforts on humanitarian diplomacy, to develop an integrated supply chain initiative, and to collaborate on shared data to strengthen early warning and rapid response.
"Excellencies,
"This humanitarian reality is unfolding at a time when official development assistance is undergoing a structural shift. This is not a temporary downturn.
"In this context, flexible funding matters more than ever. These regular resources are the foundation that allows UNICEF to respond quickly to emergencies, and to support sustainable, long-term solutions, and to ensure critical oversight functions.
"I want to recognize those partners who have demonstrated leadership during this period. This includes governments that have sustained or increased their regular resources contributions despite fiscal pressure, and National Committees whose fully flexible support represents an extraordinary vote of trust in UNICEF's mission. In particular, I would like to acknowledge the National Committees of Japan, Germany, the Republic of Korea, Spain and France - among the largest contributors to UNICEF's regular resources.
"Of course, the impact of National Committees extends well beyond funding. They are powerful advocates for children's rights, mobilizing public engagement and partnerships.
"One example is the Republic of Korea, where the National Committee partnered with global artists and the private sector to promote youth mental health, reaching millions of young people while raising significant resources for UNICEF's work.
"Excellencies,
"In this complex global environment, UNICEF is delivering for children, in crisis settings and beyond. We are supporting countries to protect development gains in health and education, to recover from shocks, and to strengthen resilience. The ability to bridge humanitarian action and development, to move from emergency response to longer-term systems strengthening, remains one of UNICEF's defining strengths.
"This is the foundation of our new Strategic Plan, endorsed by this Board last year.
"The Plan is ambitious, but it is grounded in how we work and in what we know works. It sharpens our focus on five impact results for children - health and nutrition, education, child protection, safe water and sanitation, and social policy that supports children - and it aligns delivery with the enablers required to achieve them - including financing for scale, digital transformation, and solid governance.
"In addition, we are advancing UNICEF's own Future Focus reforms. In light of unfortunate budget cuts, we have worked to increase effectiveness and efficiency across the organization, focusing reductions at HQ and regional levels, while prioritizing our work for children at the country level. These efforts involved very difficult decisions, affecting many of our dedicated staff members.
"The global Centres of Excellence I mentioned earlier will strengthen technical support to countries. These centres are already operational, responding to country demand and helping teams translate evidence into scaled results. UNICEF is committed to technical excellence, innovation, and ensuring that our work remains agile and focused on impact.
"Delivering for every child means finding ways to leverage our capacity to do more with what we have.
"A decade ago, UNICEF established the Global Shared Services Centre in Budapest to reduce administrative costs, assure quality, and help manage risk. Today, we are scaling that model, centralizing functions such as recruitment, contracting, and travel administration, which is freeing capacity in country offices to focus on delivery for children.
"We are also extending this leadership across the UN system, in line with the Secretary-General's UN80 reforms - something we will speak more about tomorrow with Under-Secretary-General Guy Ryder.
"We are actively engaged in UN80 reform efforts. At the Executive level, at regional and at country levels. Our teams are fully engaged, and our contributions are anchored in what we see every day in our country operations.
"Excellencies,
"This session also reflects our commitment to accountability and to learning. As I have said many times at these Board meetings, I am committed to creating an environment in which we constantly assess, evaluate, and look for ways to improve our work. At this session, you will consider evaluations for the years ahead and take a deeper look at an evaluation on early childhood development and education.
"In closing, let me return to the reason we are all here: children. UNICEF is present in more than 190 countries and territories, working with governments, partners and communities to give every child a fair chance, no matter who they are or where they live.
"The choices we make - about funding, reform, and partnership - will shape what is possible for children in the years ahead. My top priorities over the next year are to ensure that UNICEF is truly fit for the future, that we are financially stable, that we build new and creative partnerships to reach children - especially the most vulnerable including girls and children with disabilities. We must never lose sight of our mandate, endorsed by this board, to do everything in our power to reach every child.
"Thank you for your partnership, your leadership, and your continued commitment to the world's children."
