Check against delivery
President,
Let me start by congratulating the Executive Director and her staff with the substantial deliveries in in 2016. The annual report provides a comprehensive and impressive picture of UNOPS' operations, many taking place in challenging contexts.
We also commend UNOPS for presenting its first sustainability report aligned with the Global Reporting Initiative model. We trust that this work will lead to a clear focus on sustainability in projects in the years to come.
We appreciate UNOPS’ willingness to lead on technical design processes, and note with great interest the development of a seed capital facility and crowdfunding pilot for social impact investment.
UNOPS created more than 3 million days of work for local populations in 2016 – an increase from the year before - and established training and certification programmes locally. We strongly support UNOPS in this approach to improving national capacities.
President,
Women represent 37 per cent of UNOPS personnel, according to the annual report. We encourage UNOPS to continue to focus on improving the gender balance both among own employees and with local implementing partners. We would appreciate to learn more about how the next strategic plan will address this aspect.
Furthermore, as we have mentioned in previous sessions, we still think there is a potential to further improve the annual report, in order to better capture broader outcomes and impacts. We note that there is little information regarding challenges and lessons learned. It would be interesting to hear more about how lessons learned from the current period will influence the development of the next strategic plan.
Finally, as this is my last Executive Board meeting, I would like to conclude by thanking Grete Faremo and the UNOPS staff for their impressive work and important contributions in over 80 countries around the world. I trust that you will continue building on UNOPS` many successes and raise the ambitions even further in the next strategic plan.
Thank you.