Nordic Statement at UNICEF Executive Board

Mr. President, Dear Colleagues,

I make this statement on behalf of Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and my own country, Sweden.

We would like to state our deep appreciation of UNICEF for being a strong, committed and principled humanitarian agency in a context of unprecedented humanitarian crises and armed conflicts affecting children globally. We salute the courageous efforts of UNICEF staff and all humanitarian personnel in the field. 

Thank you for the presentation and the report focusing on equity in UNICEF humanitarian action. Humanitarian aid must always be needs based, leaving no one behind.  Finding a balance between reaching the greatest number of people in need and reaching those most in need is an essential but difficult task, especially in a context of increasing constraints on humanitarian access and disregard of humanitarian principles and international humanitarian law. We welcome that UNICEF has integrated lessons learned based on evaluations of its approach to emergencies.

The issue of humanitarian access to the most vulnerable populations is rightly emphasised. The international community must continue to press for humanitarian access in line with the humanitarian principles and increased respect for international humanitarian law, wherever it is denied or restrained. We welcome UNICEF’s strong engagement advocating for humanitarian access, and the progress it has achieved in this regard in some contexts such as Haiti and Ethiopia.

The lack of respect and accountability for international humanitarian and human rights law places millions of civilians, including children, at risk and in need of protection. The 21 percent increase in verified grave violations against children in armed conflict from 2022 to 2023 shows the devastating impacts of war and conflict on children. The protection of children is needed more than ever. We urge UNICEF to continue delivering on commitments made at the International Conference on the Protecting Children in Armed Conflict in Oslo, June 2023. 

We fully support UNICEF’s commitment to develop a centrality of protection policy, that will place protection at the heart of humanitarian action and contribute to collective protection outcomes, in line with commitments made in the IASC Protection Policy. We also particularly value UNICEF's leadership in disability inclusion.

We continue to rely on UNICEF as a key partner on education in emergencies. Promoting the Safe Schools declaration is key to this end. This year marks the 10-year anniversary, and we look forward to marking this with UNICEF as a partner.

We appreciate that UNICEF is greatly exceeding the Grand Bargain commitment of transferring at least 25 percent of humanitarian funding to local partners and that it is committed to strengthening local partners’ leadership and decision-making roles, i.e. to localize in the most meaningful way and not only forwarding funds. We welcome UNICEF’s plans to update its technical note on localization, to make it even more relevant and applicable to the country offices, where it makes the true difference for running an efficient humanitarian response and assisting affected population.

A strong focus on localisation and accountability vis-à-vis the local populations are important tools in ensuring effectiveness, transparency and targeting the needs of the most vulnerable in the most fragile humanitarian contexts.  Analyses must be based on reliable data that are gender- and age-responsive and take into account how different forms of discrimination and inequalities may interact and exacerbate vulnerabilities. We would appreciate if UNICEF could elaborate on how it intends to enhance the use of meaningful consultations with affected populations, including women, youth and children, not only in needs assessment but also involvement in programme planning, design, and management.

As humanitarian and protection needs are soaring and funding cannot keep pace, taking anticipatory action and building resilience, with a comprehensive approach and mindset and long-term investments to reduce humanitarian needs, are more relevant than ever. UNICEF should make full use of its dual mandate and widespread local presence to continue working to enhance and advance the integrated programming, while ensuring the humanitarian response is delivered in line with humanitarian principles. We value that UNICEF has been increasing its cooperation with international financial institutions. That, as well as close cooperation with other UN agencies, is paramount to strengthen the triple nexus approach, advancing resilience and long-term development, in mitigating root causes to humanitarian needs.

Making available more flexible, predictable, and multi-year funding (i.e. quality funding) is critical to help UNICEF’s ability to respond quickly and to scale up as new crises appear, or ongoing crises escalate. As humanitarian crises are dynamic in nature, it is important that humanitarian partners are provided with the means needed to be able to respond to sudden onset and/or deteriorated humanitarian needs in an efficient way. We fully share the importance of donors, public and private, taking steps to increase quality funding and to refrain from conditionalities which could affect the effectiveness and impartiality of the humanitarian response.

We believe that the recommendations of the humanitarian review and considerations about how UNICEF could further develop a people-centered and comprehensive approach in its humanitarian action, will constitute important input to the next Strategic Plan. We would be interested in more detail about the organisational and other adjustments that UNICEF believes would strengthen such an approach. We would also appreciate an update on the status of implementation of the humanitarian review.

Thank you for your attention!