EU Statement Joint Meeting of the Executive Board of UNDP/UNFPA/UNOPS: UNFPA Segment

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Madam Executive Director, excellencies, colleagues,

I have the honour to speak on behalf of the European Union as a donor.

The European Union remains a strong supporter of UNFPA and of its unique mandate, both politically and financially. We highly value UNFPA's leadership in advancing sexual and reproductive health and rights, promoting gender equality, and addressing the needs of women and girls in all settings, including the most fragile and crisis-affected contexts.

We commend UNFPA's leadership in providing comprehensive sexuality education, safe abortion care, and championing universal access to SRHR, as well as its critical role in last-mile supply chain delivery, even in the most challenging humanitarian contexts. We also applaud the progress achieved despite growing global setbacks, especially in humanitarian settings.

As discussions on UN80 advance, we welcome UNFPA's contribution to a more efficient, coherent and fit-for-purpose UN development system. We encourage continued simplification of processes, reduced fragmentation, and sharper prioritisation - including further work on both the merger scenario and on alternative options to enhance alignment, impact and efficiency with UN Women with the ambition of identifying the most effective institutional arrangements to deliver greater efficiency, coherence and impact, while fully safeguarding the existing mandates and the objective of gender equality and the advancement of the full and equal enjoyment of all human rights by all women and girls and their empowerment.

We encourage continued efforts to translate reform into stronger country-level delivery, better coordination within UN Country Teams, and an even clearer role for UNFPA, including in humanitarian contexts and supply chains.

We encourage UNFPA to continue engaging transparently with Member States and donors on reform efforts.

The EU looks forward to continuing our close partnership with UNFPA in support of women and girls everywhere.

I thank you.