Second Regular Session of the Executive Board 2025

时间：2025-10-20
作者：Haoliang Xu

As prepared for delivery

Mr. President, members of the Executive Board, colleagues, ladies and gentlemen - I am honoured to welcome you to the 2025 Second Regular Session of the UNDP/UNFPA/UNOPS Executive Board.

I thank you all for your continued support, and wish to express my gratitude to the Secretary-General and Deputy Secretary-General / Chair of the United Nations Sustainable Development Group for entrusting me with the responsibility of serving as the Acting Administrator of UNDP. Today, I am joined by our senior management - a united high-performance team. I also wish to acknowledge the dedication and hard work of UNDP personnel serving worldwide, many in increasingly challenging and crisis-affected contexts. I am grateful for the opportunity to address the Executive Board, having worked for more than 30 years with UNDP, including as a UN Resident Coordinator and UNDP Resident Representative.

We are gathered at a moment of profound disruption and transformation. Slower global growth, escalating conflicts, widening inequality and deepening polarization, coupled with the rapid advancement of artificial intelligence (AI), and the relentless impact of climate change, compel us to reimagine development and international cooperation. Pathways that once led to jobs and lifted millions out of poverty are now constrained by a ‘triple squeeze’, as termed by the latest UNDP Human Development Report: tightening financing, shrinking opportunities in manufacturing, and intensifying trade tensions that hinder exports. Such challenges know no borders; all nations are exposed.

Developing countries are most exposed. The annual financing gap for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in developing countries has increased to $4 trillion. Sharp cuts in official development assistance (ODA) are projected to reduce aid by 9–17 per cent in 2025, bringing net ODA to between $186 to $170 billion, disproportionately harming the poorest countries and limiting our collective capacity to address global challenges. Misalignments between national development plans, adequate and affordable finance, and effective, accountable and inclusive governance systems further hamper efforts to achieve sustainable development.

The result - only 35 per cent of SDG targets are on track or progressing moderately, while hard-won development gains are at risk. This overwhelming lack of progress is captured by the global Human Development Index (HDI). Over the past 50 years, development policies have helped extend life expectancy, expand education, raise incomes and narrow gender inequality. Progress has been uneven but, on average, the world has never been as healthy, educated or prosperous as it is today. However, now an alarming slowdown in the growth of the HDI growth begs the question: is human development at a tipping point, and if so, how must we respond?

Excellencies, the evidence is clear: the world’s most intractable challenges yield to determined, visionary, and well-financed multilateral action. For example, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria is proof that when we unite behind a common cause, we can achieve the impossible. Since 2002, the Global Fund partnership has mobilized over $60 billion and saved 65 million lives. UNDP is part of this effort, and as a partner of the Global Fund, has supported 51 countries since 2003. Many other examples demonstrate that multilateralism, when empowered and funded through a shared sense of responsibility and solidarity, delivers impact at scale.

Today, the foundations of multilateralism, solidarity and sustainable development are being tested like never before. Yet it is precisely in such moments of uncertainty and complexity that UNDP – as a multilateral platform for development cooperation and the pillar of the United Nations’s development system (UNDS) – is most needed. When the world feels fragmented, we provide space for countries to come together in solidarity. When challenges seem insurmountable, we are the foundation where collective action for global public goods takes shape. When progress feels out of reach, we remain an anchor, supporting countries advance development for a better future. We do not retreat from turbulence - we recognize it as the moment when our shared commitment to the 2030 Agenda must matter most.

This Executive Board session is important for all of us. It concludes the journey we started together a year ago under the leadership of our former Administrator, Achim Steiner, and with your guidance to design the UNDP Strategic Plan 2026-2029.

UNDP’s new Strategic Plan sets the vision and direction for our work at this crucial juncture. It articulates how UNDP will further partner with you to create pathways where every person can thrive in a fairer, more sustainable world. This is the promise of a future where human development and planetary sustainability reinforce each other, prosperity does not come at the expense of nature, and progress reaches everyone, everywhere. This is more than an aspiration - it is a possibility. With bold collective action and the right support, we can achieve it together.

Excellencies, let us now turn to three main points.

I. THE PAST – Six decades of trust, partnership and results at UNDP

This year marks the 80th anniversary of the signing of the United Nations Charter and founding of the United Nations. The creation of the United Nations system with its three pillars of peace and security, human rights and development, remains one of the world’s most significant achievements.

Eighty years later, “the software needs an update” to reflect the realities of today, as the Secretary-General said. UNDP is fully committed to supporting the Secretary-General’s UN80 Initiative and Member States to modernize and enhance the effectiveness of the United Nations.

UNDP is marking its 60th anniversary. The organization was formed in 1965 by merging the United Nations Expanded Programme of Technical Assistance and the United Nations Special Fund. Its mandate - to help countries to eliminate poverty and achieve sustainable development through job creation, environmental protection, and the advancement of women as requirements for peace. Development impact, integration, efficiency, and accountability are central tenets that have defined our organization from the beginning.

We have spent six decades working closely with national governments in programme countries and all development partners, particularly traditional donors who contributed significant financial resources. Through this solidarity, UNDP has made a difference in the lives of millions of people around the world. A timeline of UNDP at 60, featuring six decades of partnership and pioneering solutions, may be found in front of you. Some examples include:

1960s: UNDP helped Singapore to produce "A Proposed Industrialization Programme.” The Programme transformed Singapore from a low-income, labour-intensive economy, with a GDP per capita of $428 in 1960, into one of the world’s wealthiest nations with a GDP per capita of over $92,000 today.
1970s: UNDP supported the certification of the Bandeirante aviation authorities in Brazil where, over a 20-year period, it contributed to the internationalization of one of Brazil's largest exporters and employers. In Romania, UNDP provided technical advisory support to its first subway system. The original M1 line is still in operation today. In Africa, UNDP supported the African Civil Aviation Commission and International Civil Aviation Organization to establish the first civil aviation training institutions at national and multinational levels.
1980s: UNDP and the Government of Egypt created the Social Fund for Development to reduce poverty by supporting small-scale development projects. The Fund helped create over two million jobs, improve the livelihoods of over 10 million people, provided financial support to 200,000 micro-enterprises, and upskilled over 500,000 Egyptians.
1990s: With support from UNDP and the Global Environment Facility, nearly $3 billion in investments from national governments, the World Bank, and other public and private partners was mobilized across the Danube–Black Sea basin to cut nutrient pollution caused by humans. This joint effort by 17 countries eliminated the Black Sea’s massive dead zone, reviving its ecosystem, tourism, and fisheries.
2000s: After the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami UNDP supported Indonesia’s response, rebuilding over 3,500 houses, 500 kilometers of roads, and essential public infrastructure in Aceh. Grounded in community resilience and conflict-sensitive approaches, these efforts strengthened long-term recovery.
2010s: Recognizing that developing country governments are often underrepresented in negotiations in mining contracts, UNDP’s regional programme in sub-Saharan Africa helped Liberia, Sierra Leone and Tanzania to strengthen their negotiating positions and work towards securing a fairer share of revenue from their extractive sectors.
2020s: When the COVID-19 pandemic claimed millions of lives and brought the world to a standstill, UNDP supported countries, as the technical lead of the United Nations socio-economic response, to prepare 128 rapid socio-economic impact assessments and over 100 response plans that helped guide recovery efforts, and assisted 82 countries to enhance their digital public infrastructure.

Underpinning our results is a deep commitment to being a learning organization that prepares and evolves to meet future challenges and opportunities.

This brings me to my second point: How is UNDP evolving and responding to the present and rapidly changing development landscape?

II. THE PRESENT: UNDP capabilities: Serving Member States and the United Nations system

Today, we face very different, more complex challenges. With Member State support, especially the critical core resources you have provided, UNDP has invested in its capabilities and countries’ capacities to keep pace with evolving development challenges.

Last year, we intentionally undertook a business model review (BMR) of the organization, which provided UNDP with insights into improving our capabilities to create, finance and deliver better value for the countries and people we serve. The implementation of concrete actions to follow up to the BMR is underway, and we look forward to sharing our progress with Member States during a briefing planned for early September.

UNDP has invested in key, core capabilities that are at the service of Member States and the United Nations family:

Our universal and responsive presence. Demand for UNDP support has extended our presence to 170 countries and territories. More than a number, this represents longstanding partnerships and a deep understanding of local contexts and opportunities. It allows UNDP to respond rapidly and have an impact where it matters most – at country level. Our regional capabilities and presence through UNDP hubs in Addis Ababa, Amman, Bangkok, Istanbul, and Panama, and other sub-regional locations, enable cost-efficient, effective and rapid support to our country offices. The value of our universal presence has also been recognized by the United Nations Board of Auditors (UNBOA) as a ‘major asset’ to the system.
Trusted relationships with governments and partners. Trust underpins development cooperation. According to 11,000 professionals surveyed in 148 countries, nine out of 10 development practitioners in leadership positions consider UNDP a helpful development partner. Trust between UNDP and developing countries is anchored in our commitment to listen, adapt, and accompany countries on their development journeys. Governments continue to request UNDP support on some of their most sensitive issues: from national planning to rule of law. In 2024, developing countries invested $1.2 billion in UNDP programme in their own countries - a signal that UNDP is seen as a valued partner. We continue to strengthen trust with traditional donors through strategic dialogues, regular engagement and demonstration of results. Over 90 per cent of donors surveyed in a 2020 Multilateral Organisation Performance Assessment Network agreed that UNDP programmes are responsive to the needs of beneficiaries, including the most vulnerable. This trust means that despite domestic pressure that has led to reductions in contributions, traditional donors are making a tremendous effort to continue to fund UNDP’s work.
Our global and local policy advisory, technical assistance and implementation capacity.UNDP works with governments to co-create customized integrated policy solutions that tackle systemic issues. Our Global Policy Network is comprised of experts in headquarters, regional hubs and country offices; as well as in global policy centers in Istanbul, Oslo, Seoul, Singapore; a centre in Rome for Climate Action and Energy Transition, and an office in Qatar to strengthen programmatic cooperation. Though limited compared with demand, our technical expertise across a range of development areas provides countries with policy and programme implementation capacity, including analytics, stakeholder engagement and resource mobilization, that allows UNDP to translate advice into action.
Operational capacities that deliver results efficiently with accountability and transparency. UNDP has a robust accountability system, comprehensive policy and procedures and advanced risk management tools to deliver impact efficiently, accountably and transparently:
19 years of clean audits from UNBOA covering, on average, over $5 billion in annual expenses in 130 currencies.
91 cents of every dollar go toward programmes and services (up from 89 cents in 2018), demonstrating our constant efforts to reduce costs.
UNDP adheres to global open data standards through our transparency portal open.undp.org and maintained its top-tier rating on the Aid Transparency Index in 2024.
According to the UN2.0 system wide assessment, UNDP is a recognized leader in the areas of digital, data, foresight, innovation, and behavioral science.
Our independent offices of audit and investigation, evaluation, and ethics, as well as UNBOA provide partners with assurances that UNDP is implementing projects and spending funds strictly in accordance with its rules and regulations.
We use data to help managers in country offices take proactive steps to improve and sustain high performance in the long run. For example, by combining the results of staff surveys with programme delivery, we can effectively identify high performing offices with high staff morale or those facing potential staff burn out.
A dynamic organizational culture. UNDP continues to strengthen its organizational culture to deliver. Insights from our most recent culture assessment show that UNDP has strengthened its six “culture markers” - accountable impact orientation, agility, collaboration, innovation and learning, entrepreneurship, and sustainable high-performance . We build high-performance teams, anchored in shared commitment, employee engagement, inclusion, well-being, and zero tolerance for any form of harassment or abuse.
A unique role in providing an integrator function. General Assembly resolution 72/279 highlighted the role of UNDP “as the support platform of the United Nations development system providing an integrator function in support of countries in their efforts to implement the 2030 Agenda.” Accordingly, UNDP delivers its integrator function by supporting developing countries to formulate, finance and implement integrated approaches for sustainable development. In some aspects of its integrator function UNDP has performed well; in others, we can do better. Allow me to share a few examples of where we have excelled before highlighting areas of improvement.
Innovative approaches and tools that support system change, available to the UNDS: Development challenges are interconnected and solutions require cross-sectoral collaboration. UNDP has developed a ‘systems and portfolio approach’ to strengthen its capacity as a development integrator. At UNDP, a portfolio is a dynamic set of connected interventions that are strategically designed and managed to generate a continuous supply of new options in the face of complex challenges. Our approaches—now in over 100 countries and cities and available to the UNDS - build on the momentum of our Accelerator Labs to source creative solutions. Please see our new report “Modernizing Development Portfolios” in front of you for more information.
SDG Push: It is a global collaborative initiative that works with governments, the UN, and local partners to accelerate national progress toward the SDGs by leveraging data and policy tools. Integrated into United Nations guidance frameworks, and informed by a suite of SDG acceleration tools, SDG Push powered collaboration with 100 countries to pinpoint SDG accelerators ahead of the 2023 SDG Summit.
Climate Promise 2025: At the request of the Secretary-General and under the leadership of the Resident Coordinators (RCs), UNDP’s Climate Promise brings together 30 United Nations organizations and country teams in 115 countries to jointly support governments to strengthen and implement their nationally determined contributions (NDCs) in alignment with the Paris Agreement and SDGs. The Climate Promise emphasizes the investment potential of NDCs. In addition, since meeting the 1.5°C target is not possible without nature, UNDP also helps countries align climate and biodiversity plans linked to global conventions.
Sustainable Finance: Between 2022 and 2024, every dollar invested in UNDP catalyzed $60 in public and private investments, mobilizing over $870 billion for the SDGs through strategic partnerships with governments, international financial institutions (IFIs), the private sector and United Nations organizations. Notably, integrated national financing frameworks (INFFs) in 86 countries are strengthening financial planning and mobilizing capital through sustainable finance strategies that consider gender, climate and crisis contexts. To support countries translate financing ambitions of the 4th International Conference on Financing for Development into tangible results, UNDP and the United Nations Capital Development Fund (UNCDF) - hosted by UNDP - have formed an alliance. UNDP helps shape enabling policy environments, while UNCDF operationalizes frameworks through concrete, scalable financial interventions.
Crisis Offer: Aligned with the Secretary-General’s prevention agenda, the UNDP Crisis Offer helps countries operationalize the humanitarian-development-peace nexus through prevention, stabilization, early recovery, and peacebuilding programmes that reduce long-term dependence on humanitarian assistance. Our Crisis Offer enables UNDP to stay and deliver in complex contexts, advancing country and community ownership, and facilitating a rapid return to locally-led development that gets livelihoods and markets moving, even during conflict.
The operational backbone for the United Nations system: The UNDP global network is an asset to the United Nations. In line with General Assembly resolution 72/279, UNDP provides services to over 70 UN entities, from payroll to procurement, human resources (HR), administration, finance and treasury, to leading digital infrastructure solutions. Since 2003, the UNDP Global Shared Service Centre provided services in four languages to more than 50,000 UN personnel. Our enterprise resource platform - Quantum - now serves 10 United Nations organizations in seven languages, creating unprecedented inter-operability and efficiency gains. We also manage 136 common United Nations premises that provide common services at the country level. We welcome the opportunity to work with United Nations organizations that have unique comparative advantages to leverage complementarities and increase efficiency.

Additionally, UNDP hosts and offers a range of administrative, finance, HR, technology, legal, security and audit and investigation services to United Nations entities that serve the entire system:

UNCDF puts its unique capital mandate at the service of the United Nations to unlock finance, particularly in least developed countries (LDCs). Between 2022 to 2024, UNCDF catalyzed an estimated $780 million.
United Nations Volunteers (UNV) enabled more than 14,000 UN Volunteers to contribute to the mandates of 59 UN entities in 169 countries in 2024 alone.
United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation (UNOSSC) has enhanced policy frameworks for the UN’s engagement in South-South and triangular cooperation under the guidance of the High-Level Committee on South-South Cooperation. UNOSSC has supported the implementation of 140 projects in 120 countries through 23 United Nations entities over the past decade.
Multi-Partner Trust Fund Office enables Member States to meet their Funding Compact commitments to increase contributions to pooled funding, and supports the United Nations to work jointly. Over the past two decades it has administered a portfolio of $20 billion.

In line with the responsibilities entrusted to UNDP for UNCDF, UNV and UNOSSC, UNDP continues to invest in these entities, providing $29.8 million from UNDP institutional resources in 2025.

UNDP is firmly committed to the 2018 UNDS reform. We continue to be the largest single entity contributor to the RC system. In 2025, UNDP paid its full cost-sharing contribution of $10.85 million despite depleting financial conditions. This brought the total UNDP contribution, including the 1 per cent levy, to the RC system (since 2019) to $115.7 million. One hundred percent of UNDP country programme documents are fully aligned with the UN Sustainable Development Cooperation Frameworks as confirmed by the RCs, and UNDP is advancing the implementation of its commitments under the Management and Accountability Framework.

Snapshot of results and funding

I am pleased to report, as discussed during the annual session, that UNDP is on track to achieve 90 per cent of its Strategic Plan 2022-2025 targets. Information is available in our annual report that speaks to UNDP delivering results within its $5 billion financial envelope.

However, as detailed in the structured dialogue report on financing the results of the UNDP Strategic Plan, 2022–2025, while UNDP managed to stabilize core resources and flexible funding until 2024, we face significant funding challenges from 2025 onwards, with several partners sharply reducing or suspending core funding to UNDP. The trend of UNDP’s core funding has been declining – from 75 per cent of total resources in the 1990s to 12 per cent in 2024, well below the 30 per cent Funding Compact target, and 22 per cent short of the target in the Integrated Resources Plan and Integrated Budget (IRP-IB) 2022-2025. If the decline in core is not reversed, the proportion of core is expected to drop substantially to 9 per cent in 2025 and 8 per cent in 2026.

Excellencies, core funding is the most important source of income to UNDP. It is the foundation that makes UNDP the United Nations’ development agency, enables it to play the integrator role and allows it to mobilize additional resources for developing countries. In 2024, for example, UNDP mobilized $7.4 in other resources for every dollar of core received. Without adequate core resources, UNDP’s capacity to remain a strong, public goods–focused development partner of yours will be significantly reduced. Our universal presence – an asset to the UN system that underpins all we do – will be eroded, negatively affecting the most vulnerable. Our integrator role on sustainable development – our capacity to drive strategic discussions on the alignment between planning, financing and governance, our capacity to innovate, to catalyze financing from all sources for the SDGs, to rapidly respond to crisis, and to provide oversight in line with the highest standards of accountability – will be jeopardized.

In 2024, 41 countries contributed to UNDP’s core resources. We thank all of them for their support! Of the 41 countries, 23 are members of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Development Assistant Committee (DAC) (out of 33 DAC members); four are non-DAC high income countries. Fourteen of the 41 countries are programme countries (three high income; four upper middle income; seven low middle income, including three LDCs); their effort is tremendous. It is gratifying to note that both our traditional donors and our programme countries contribute to core. In 2024, core contributions ranged from $100 million to $3,000. Our traditional donors continue to provide most of UNDP’s core resources, with the top ten accounting for 81 per cent of total core. Also in 2024, ten partners increased their core contribution,and 12 made multi-year pledges to core.

Non-core contributions remained robust in 2024, coming from diverse partners. Third party cost sharing made up 37 per cent of total contributions ($1.81 billion), while the vertical funds made up 19 per cent ($920 million). Ninety-sixprogramme countries leveraged UNDP’s value-added support services to ensure effective and efficient implementation of key national programmes, investing $1.2 billion (a quarter of UNDP 2024 annual resources) in their countries’ development. Programme countries also provided significant annual government contributions to local office costs (GLOC). As this supports local country costs, UNDP highly appreciates this support.

I will come back to UNDP’s funding situation later. Let us now look ahead to 2026 and beyond.

III. THE FUTURE: UNDP Strategic Plan 2026-2029, investing in development for prosperity and peace

You are familiar with the proposed Strategic Plan thanks to your participation in the extraordinary consultation process: nearly 600 consultations in 116 countries, involving governments, civil society, private sector and the United Nations. The Plan is informed by the inputs and feedback we received from you, recommendations from independent evaluations and midterm reviews of the Strategic Plan 2022-2025, and other objective sources.

We thank you, Executive Board Members, as well as other Member States, for your strong engagement and invaluable guidance since we shared the roadmap for development of the new Strategic Plan in October last year.

I would like to highlight three distinctive features of the draft Strategic Plan:

First, the overarching objective is to put us back on the path to accelerate human development while easing pressures on the planet. Reflecting the integrated and systemic nature of today’s development challenges, the Strategic Plan is anchored in the 2030 Agenda, the SDGs remain our North Star, poverty eradication continues to be our foundational mission, and human rights and leaving no one behind underpin all our work.

With systems change as an overall approach to drive integrated development, the Plan defines four strategic objectives:

Prosperity for all: Moving beyond the goalposts of a minimum poverty line, to build dynamic societies where everyone can thrive while maintaining a strong focus on inclusive growth, poverty eradication and inequality programming. UNDP remains committed to leaving no-one behind.
Effective governance: Accountable, people-centered and rights-based governance in line with intergovernmental principles of effective governance for sustainable development.
Crisis resilience: Reducing risk and protecting development gains from day one of a crisis, laying the groundwork for recovery and exit from humanitarian assistance, and acting as a “bridge-builder” between humanitarian, development and peacebuilding systems.
Healthy planet: Positioning UNDP as a leader at the nexus of people, planet and development, aiming to translate global commitments into local action, working with countries towards just and sustainable transitions.

Three accelerators drive progress toward systemic change:

Digital and AI transformation: Digital advancements expand opportunities, improve public services, enhance civic engagement and speed up response to crisis.
Sustainable finance: Better alignment of capital flows from all sources with sustainable development priorities can unlock new pathways to prosperity and a healthy planet.
Gender equality: When women are empowered through laws and public policies, societies are more resilient, economies grow faster and poverty and inequality decrease. Gender equality is not only an important area of work in its own right, but functions as a force-multiplier across UNDP’s work.

The Strategic Plan is accompanied by a three-tiered Integrated Results and Resources Framework (IRRF), that summarizes development and organizational results UNDP will achieve, in collaboration with our governments and other partners. The IRRF includes 22 SDG-related indicators to ensure UNDP results measurement directly support, and track progress towards the SDGs.

Secondly, we will sharpen our focus on integration, based on what we have learned and where we need to do better. The evaluation of our current Strategic Plan confirmed that “UNDP capitalized on the flexibility of the Strategic Plan 2022-2025 to drive integrated solutions.” Our experience shows that truly integrated development solutions require deeper systems thinking and stronger cross-sector capabilities. Sustainable progress happens when countries align three fundamentals: National plans with clear, measurable goals that reflect people’s aspirations and address people's needs; budgets that mobilize diverse sources of financing and private investments that support national development objectives; and governance systems anchored in ECOSOC-endorsed principles of effective governance that reflect effectiveness, accountability, and inclusion. This should be supported by robust digital systems and data for evidence-based policymaking. Our new Strategic Plan outlines how we will advance such integrated development solutions, working with regional and national entities, and the UNDS to support countries to align planning, financing, and governance to drive systems change. This is a question of development strategy that we need to work more on. Despite the financial challenges we are facing, we will review our institutional structure and capacity to be an effective development integrator with a sense of urgency.

Third, our readiness to manage uncertainties and for the future. The Strategic Plan is built for complexity, leaving room for UNDP to adapt to different scenarios and respond pragmatically to future disruptions that include fluctuations in funding. It allows for the strategic expansion or consolidation of programmatic elements as opportunities emerge and constraints materialize, while we maintain the integrity of our offer. This agility is underpinned by UNDP’s focus on strategic foresight, performance data, innovation and digital capabilities, and risk management systems, all of which help to build an agile and anticipatory organization, providing credible support to countries as their needs evolve.

Funding: Integrated Resources Plan and Integrated Budget (IRP-IB 2026-2029)

Our new Strategic Plan was developed against the backdrop of unprecedented ODA cuts. Reflecting this reality, the IRP-IB 2026-2029 presents a financially constrained, while realistic resource envelope. Based on the best information available at the time of preparation, total resources have been reduced by 9.7 per cent compared with latest estimates for 2022-2025. The reduction in core contributions is estimated at 16.8 per cent. While it will be difficult to achieve the core targets given what we know now, it is imperative that UNDP maintains its ambition for core as this is the oxygen that powers our systems for delivering results.

Achieving the new Strategic Plan’s ambitions within a more constrained financial envelope means acting responsibly and proactively on multiple fronts. UNDP is already taking a combination of actions across four areas: increased efficiency, cost control, income generation and strategic investments that reduce costs but support capabilities needed now and in the future.

As a follow-up to the BMR we are:

Increasing the scale of shared services and AI-powered systems and analytics.
Developing new partnerships with the business sector; offering development services to companies, philanthropists and IFIs; expanding engagements with new strategic partners; and tailoring visibility plans for top core donors at all levels.
Investing in the development of large-scale transformative projects.
Investing in UNDP staff capacities to leverage system change tools and the efficiency potential of AI.

In addition, financial discipline continues to drive efficiency gains and lower costs, as we:

Conduct a workforce optimization exercise to enhance cost efficiencies, and ensure that UNDP has the right skills to deliver on the Strategic Plan, and can attract and retain the talent it needs with the anticipated financial envelope.
Shift country office support functions closer to the field.
Review location-independent functions with a view to potentially moving these out of New York to strategically selected duty station(s).
Reduce travel and reassignment costs, for example, delaying the rotation of international staff by one year.

We recognize the impact of these measures and uncertainty on UNDP personnel. Management is in regular communication with personnel and the Staff Council to navigate these changes in a thoughtful and transparent manner.

CONCLUSION

Excellencies, accelerating human development is achievable. Decades of sustained progress show we know what works. The world has never been as healthy, educated and prosperous as it is today. But momentum has slowed, we reached a tipping point, risking a reversal of vital gains. As the world's leading development network, with a presence in 170 countries and territories, and 60 years of expertise, UNDP is poised to play a key role in advancing sustainable human development.

The urgent matters before you are the endorsement of the 2026-2029 Strategic Plan and how to address the precipitous decline in UNDP’s core resources. Core resources play an essential part in our ability to meet and exceed expectations of the people, communities and countries we serve. With core at a critically low level, declining from $581 million in 2024 to possibly $435 million this year and likely below $400 million in 2026, we need to decide, collectively, what it means and what we can do about it. UNDP management has been taking decisive steps to safeguard the organisation’s ability to deliver on its mandate. However, if the erosion of core continues, our work, a “major asset” of the United Nations according to UNBOA and, indeed, our collective capacity to drive meaningful progress towards sustainable development, will be threatened and eventually compromised.

I believe we have a solution – a solution that is rooted in a coalition of all Member States and powered by the principles of solidarity, multilateral action and mutual benefit. Recall what has made the Global Fund successful and what has made the Montreal Protocol work for ozone layer repair!

Imagine, if we saw UNDP as a shareholding collective of 193 members, each responsible for sustaining their fair share.

Imagine, if in addition to the 41 countries contributing to core and the 96 programme countries providing government co-financing, many more countries made a contribution to UNDP core funding?

Imagine, if all OECD DAC Members - not just the 23 that currently contribute - and other high income developed countries, decided to make a contribution to UNDP’s core?

More than 50 percent of our programme expenditure is in fragile and conflict-affected countries, and 80% in low income countries and LDCs: imagine, how much more UNDP could contribute to peace and stability if our traditional donors helped us reverse the declining trend for core and allow us to increase our programmatic leveraging capacity from a proportion of 1 to 7 to 1 to 8?

Imagine, what UNDP could do with its integrator mandate if it had more capacity to drive strategic discussions of why development succeeds or fails today, and immediately be able to do more with our governments on integrated development strategies best fit for the current context?

Every contribution to core, especially by our traditional donors, demonstrates your belief in solidarity and your confidence in UNDP as an important pillar of the United Nations development system. And it demonstrates your conviction that development is the pathway for a better and more sustainable world.

Excellencies, look at how much we have accomplished together over six decades. I am confident that maintaining a strong and effective UNDP, you will have at your service a reliable, dependable and collectively owned development institution. The needs are significant and urgent, but the opportunities are greater and can be seized.

On behalf of UNDP, I thank you for your trust. Let us move forward together, as steadfast partners in the great unfinished project of sustainable human development.