Check against delivery

Chair, Madam Executive Director 

I am speaking on behalf of the European Union as a donor.

Many thanks for the presentation of the Office of Internal Audit and Investigations’ annual report for 2024 and Management’s response. We acknowledge the finding that the UNICEF governance, risk management and controls were once again deemed generally adequate and effective. 

We appreciate the publication of 10 country audit reports and 7 thematic audit reports. While we welcome that 82 per cent of the reports were generally satisfactory, we encourage UNICEF to quickly implement measures to remedy the 22 per cent of the agreed actions rated as high priority. We also ask UNICEF to swiftly complete the agreed actions remaining from the 2022 and 2023 audits. 

We note that in 2024, like in 2023, a number of key observations concerned programme management. We agree that enhancing transparency in the selection of civil society organisation partners will have a positive impact on localisation, and we welcome that country offices have already started improving this process. We support the recommendation to enhance UNICEF humanitarian preparedness and response and we welcome the creation of a global quarterly process to identify the 25 countries with the highest risk of emergencies. We also support the recommendation to strengthen risk-informed programme monitoring, as well as the need to monitor risks related to protecting vulnerable persons from sexual exploitation and abuse. 

We note that actions related to supply chain and services represented 25 per cent of all actions agreed to by audited country offices. We strongly support the call for improvement in the tracking of supplies after their transfer to partners, in order to minimise the risk of loss or diversion. We welcome that Management is enhancing the Last Mile Supply Monitoring solution and we do hope to see tangible progress across all regions.

We strongly support the OIAI’s recommendation to further strengthen fraud risk management and enhance staff and partners’ awareness and training, and we encourage Management to address this important issue. We note that OIAI continues to face difficulties accessing relevant and often critical information and evidence in fraud cases, from third parties but also from UNICEF systems. We would like to have assurances that UNICEF will find the resources needed for enhancing its anti-fraud policy and improving its risk management and compliance functions. We reiterate that the EU remains fully committed to the fight against any form of fraud and corruption and we invite UNICEF to continue with its proactive communication to donors as soon as allegations concern activities they are supporting come to light. 

We welcome UNICEF’s continued efforts related to protection from sexual exploitation and abuse activities, including reinforcing a victim/survivor centred approach and zero tolerance for SEAH. We commend the good work already done by UNICEF.  However, we note that OIAI encountered challenges in cases involving third party personnel and we encourage UNICEF to ensure timely reporting from partners and support their partners in building adequate capacities to address the SEAH risks. In this context, we look forward to the new complaint and feedback management procedure expected to enhance accountability and responsiveness, especially for SEA and fraud cases and the finalisation of a new safeguarding code of conduct for UNICEF’s implementing partners. 

We are encouraged by OIAI’s high level of ambition and commitment in pursuing its objectives, and we underline the importance of preserving the integrity and resourcing of oversight functions, even in a challenging financial environment.

Thank you.