Mr. President,
I have the honor to deliver this statement on behalf of Greece, Ireland, Italy, The United Kingdom, the United States, as well as my own country, Israel.
I would like to begin by congratulating the new Executive Coordinator of the UN Volunteers programme, Mr. Richard Dictus, and assure him of our full support as he takes on his new role.
We would like to thank the UNDP Associate Administrator for her remarks, as well as the UNV Executive Coordinator for his comments on the evolution of the UNV's role and functions. The report before us presents us with the necessary background to meaningfully discuss the plans and the strategic vision and direction for UNV’s future. We thank UNV and UNDP for the Administrator’s report, which clearly highlights the expanded role and increased scope of UNV since its inception in 1971.
Reflecting on the past, we commend the UN Volunteers programme's contribution to global sustainable human development and peace around the world by promoting voluntarism and mobilization of UN volunteers to support the effective delivery of UN entities' programmes and mandates.
The report demonstrates how throughout the years, UNV has established good cooperative relations with UN funds and programmes and other multinational stakeholders. In particular, UNV and UNDP have enjoyed a symbiotic relationship, in which UNV expertise and UNDP financial and administrative support have contributed to programs even in very challenging environments.
We encourage UNV and UNDP to continue developing this productive relationship, and for UNDP to continue involving UNV in programmatic and operational planning and decision-making within the organization and development system. In this regard, we welcome the reference to the collaboration with UNV in the draft of UNDP's next strategic plan 2014-2017, and the mentioning of UNV as key resource for community-level presence, organization and action.
Mr. President,
The report before us clearly describes how UNV’s role has expanded from providing human resources for development to an expanded mandate which includes promoting volunteerism internationally, integrating volunteering in development planning, mobilizing volunteers for peace and development, and, most recently, its renewed mandate for youth volunteering.
For this reason, we welcome UNV’s initiative to develop a future-oriented strategic framework for the period 2014-2017 that will articulate the vision, mission, guiding principles, and strategic goals that UNV will pursue for the next four years. The next strategic framework is a good opportunity to transform UNV into a more focused, result-driven, efficient, and effective organization.
Such a strategic plan should build on the report of the Administrator on the UNV's evolution, integrate lessons learned from past experience, and align itself with the planning cycle of other Funds and Programmes. We hope that this framework, the first of its kind, will be a milestone in the organization's evolution.
Let me now offer a few comments on a future strategic framework of the organization:
We believe that in a world of scarce resources and multiple challenges, UNV should put emphasis on expanding its partnerships. It should reach out to non-traditional partners including Member States, the private sector, private foundations, civil society organizations, and academia to increase resource mobilization and expand its knowledge base. Building partnerships should play an important role in the future strategic framework of the organization, and should be aligned with the strategic priorities of the organization, as set out in the strategic plan.
We encourage UNV to continue moving in the direction of building a knowledge-based organization, with adequate monitoring and evaluation capacities. Evaluations provide valuable lessons that support organizational learning. They should be used and integrated more systematically into the work of UNV. This should be the focus of our ongoing efforts to strengthen the quality and the sustainability of the results achieved through programmes and projects around the world.
On the results based management, we welcome the intention to accompany the strategic plan with a results-and-resources matrix which will track both programme results and organizational effectiveness and efficiency results, and also report on results to the Executive Board. This is certainly good news, in line with the guidance provided by the QCPR and the work done in other funds and programs.
We recognize that UNV has made substantial efforts to maintain gender balance among its staff, and increase the number of women volunteers. However, the overall global percentage of female volunteers has not increased significantly in the past six years. It is therefore important that gender is mainstreamed in the new strategic plan, and those strategies to overcome the apparent gender discrepancy will be applied by agencies and missions deploying UN Volunteers, particularly in peacekeeping missions.
Mr. President,
With our eyes to the future, we also encourage UNV to continue fulfilling the role it plays in the ongoing negotiations of the post-2015 development framework. Volunteerism and mobilizing volunteers to achieve development results should be part of the discussion. We would therefore welcome more information regarding UNV activities in this field.
Mr. President,
We look forward to future consultations with the organization, and stand ready to work closely with UNV as it embarks on a new phase of its mission.
Thank you, Mr. President