Mr. President, Madam Executive Director, Members of the Executive Board,

I am pleased to deliver this statement on behalf of Canada, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Portugal, and the United Kingdom, the United States, as well as my own country, Israel.

Let me begin by congratulating the President and Vice-Presidents on their election to the Bureau. I would like to thank the Executive Director for her statement this morning.

I would also like to thank the UN-Women’s Evaluation Office for their comprehensive evaluation report on UN-Women’s contribution to increasing women’s leadership and participation in peace and security and in humanitarian response. We also thank the management for its forthright and detailed response.

We welcome the evaluation’s focus on women, peace and security, which is one of the six programmatic priories of UN-Women. Women’s leadership and participation in peace and security is critical in different contexts, particularly when responding to crises, where women are especially vulnerable. It is equally important to ensure post-crisis recovery and sustainable peace. We support UN-Women's work in this area.

Let me now offer a few specific comments on the Thematic Evaluation Report and on the Management Response before us.

First, we are pleased to see that UN-Women and its predecessors have provided effective contributions to the advancement of women’s leadership and participation in peace and security.

However, we also note that, while these successes have been uneven, the strongest evidence points to UN Women's contributions at the global level. The management makes it clear in its response that it is committed to improve its ability to deliver positive results with reliability and efficiency.

We strongly emphasize the importance of strengthening the coordination role of UN-Women across the UN System. We would be happy to learn more about UN-Women's intentions to strengthen its coordination role, and how this will serve to increase women's leadership and participation in peace and security.

Second, we wish to place particular importance on the need for UN-Women to strengthen its engagement with regional institutions. Leveraging UN-Women’s expertise through the expansion of strategic partnerships – including with regional organizations - is an important recommendation of the evaluation. 

We welcome the management response, indicating that the UN-Women regional offices have begun strategically engaging with regional organizations, especially with regional peace and security institutions.​

We encourage the regional offices to take a leading role in this regard. We also encourage UN-Women to expand its regional engagement to include gender and peace building training, in coordination with the Peace-building Support Office.

Third, we are pleased to see that the evaluation finds that UN-Women’s strategic positioning has advanced on the international level. It is now seen as the lead actor on women, peace and security in the UN System.  However, we are concerned with the evaluation’s conclusion that, at the country office level, visibility and influence have not increased since the creation of UN-Women. It is important that external partners as well as UN Women staff in the field have clarity about UN Women's role. We encourage UN-Women to be particularly vigilant in providing this clarity, especially with regard to its operations on the ground.

Fourth, on knowledge-sharing, and on UN-Women as a learning organization.  Ongoing evaluations provide valuable lessons that support organizational learning. They identify strengths and weaknesses, and help to refine intervention. They are the key to sustainable results. It is not surprising then, that the theme of knowledge-sharing and evaluation runs through many of the recommendations.

In this connection, we are pleased that UN-Women is taking steps to document theories of change. However, we note the limited ability to compile and evaluate lessons learned at the national level. This shortfall may limit UN-Women's organizational effectiveness and hinder effective programme design. We are happy to learn that UN-Women is committed to strengthen its knowledge base, and we would be interested to learn more about its intentions in this regard.

Allow me to also mention the global study on implementation of the women peace and security resolutions. This study could also contribute significantly to strengthening UN-Women’s knowledge base, and we would welcome more information from UN-Women regarding its planning.

Mr. President,

We recognize that a full evaluation of UN-Women’s humanitarian response capacity was not undertaken as this is a new area of work for the entity. We note that the new UN-Women's humanitarian strategy will be presented to the Board. We look forward to further discussion on this, particularly with regard to the area of gender based and sexual violence; UN Women's participation at the Inter-Agency Standing Committee; and on UN Women's resources and capacities to implement this strategy.

Mr. President,

In conclusion, we attach great importance to the evaluation function within UN-Women, particularly to its independence and effectiveness. This is a critical instrument for improving performance and cultivating stakeholder confidence in the quality of UN-Women’s work.  Most importantly, it is key for ensuring real change on the ground.

We stand ready to work with you.

Thank you Mr. President​