Check against delivery

Mr President, Madam Executive Director,

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

Thank you for this detailed financial report for 2023. We are pleased to see that the Board of Auditors found the overall financial position of UNICEF to remain sound.

We note that in 2023, UNICEF implemented 73 per cent of the 33 outstanding recommendations which were open at the beginning of the year. We encourage UNICEF to swiftly complete all outstanding recommendations, including those remaining from the year 2022.

We appreciate UNICEF’s transparency and its efforts to detect and report cases of fraud and presumptive fraud. However, we note that the report indicates that in 2023, fraud resulted in a USD 140,000 loss. In comparison to the total net expenses of USD 8.8 billion, such a loss represents a fraud detection rate of 0.00157 %. We find this detection rate extremely low when compared with other organisations in the same field and the general perceived risk level.

The annual report of the UNICEF Office of Internal Audit and Investigations for 2023, presented at the Board in June 2024, highlighted concerns regarding the management of fraud and corruption risks. The report noted that senior management did not prioritize management of fraud and corruption risks in many instances, and that risk assessments failed to cover all high-risk areas. It also alerted on potential significant underreporting of fraud, particularly procurement fraud, and emphasized a lack of supporting documentation from implementing partners.

The low rate of fraud detected in the financial report presented at this session, combined with the findings mentioned before, might suggest that UNICEF's control and oversight system is not effective enough in managing the risks of fraud and corruption. We would like to hear how UNICEF interprets this low rate of reported fraud and whether all necessary systems have been put in place in order to avoid underreporting.

We would like to reiterate that the EU remains fully committed to the fight against any form of fraud and corruption and in the context of its zero-tolerance for inaction policy, it expects all its partners to take decisive action. In that regard, we urge UNICEF to look into enhancing its system to detect fraud, corruption and the misuse of funds and to implement additional controls. We also invite UNICEF to continue showing maximum transparency on its ongoing efforts to address these issues at field and headquarters levels and we appreciate its proactive communication to donors as soon as allegations concerning activities they are supporting come to light.

I thank you.