Statement by H.E. Mr. Hiroshi Minami
Deputy Permanent Representative of Japan to the United Nations
At the Annual Session of the Executive Board of UN-Women
27 June 2017

 

 

Thank you, Madam President,

 

          At the outset, I would like to express my gratitude to Ms. Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, Executive Director of UN-Women, for her comprehensive statement and annual report.

 My country fully supports the extension of the Executive Director’s mandate for another four years.

 

(Annual report)

          We are satisfied with the positive performance of UN-Women in 2016 in line with the current Strategic Plan. 　We believe that continued efforts to align its results with the targets of the SDGs, in close consultation with the other United Nations funds and programmes, will help further improve the quality of its performance.

 

          We also welcome UN-Women’s comprehensive analysis of its progress and challenges contained in the report. We hope that lessons learned from the current Plan will be appropriately reflected into the development of the new Strategic Plan.

 

(New Strategic Plan)

          With regard to the new Strategic plan, we appreciate that the drafting process is being undertaken in a transparent manner.

 

          UN-Women’s composite mandate, with its three foundational roles, is a valuable advantage. 　However, we believe it is important for UN-Women to prioritize these roles, taking into account realistic projections of its financial and human resources. 　In this regard, we consider that UN-Women’s normative role should be at the top of its mandate.

 

          Second, UN-Women’s coordination role is also of great importance, especially in terms of breaking silos in the UN system as a whole.

          We therefore emphasize the importance of the implementation of the United Nations System-wide Action Plan (UN-Swap). We expect UN-Women, as the leading organization, to further accelerate its efforts accordingly to meet as many performance requirements as possible by the 2017 deadline.

 

          Third, with regard to the operational role of UN-Women, we request UN-Women, in close collaboration with other funds and programmes, to avoid duplications of project implementation, and to ensure project visibility as much as possible at the country level.

 

          Additionally, we fully support the introduction of the Flagship Programmes Initiatives. 　In order for them to enjoy widespread support, we believe that their mechanism should be accessible and clear in terms of their implementation processes, the involvement of donors, and their funding.

 

(Funding)

          The funding gap may be the biggest impediment to the full implementation of the new Strategic Plan. 　We share the common view that expanding UN-Women’s core funding is essential.

 

          In this regard, efforts should be focused on ensuring and maintaining a robust donor base. Japan was the second largest donor country to UN-Women in 2016, in terms of combined core and non-core resources. 　We also achieved a 5% increase to our core contribution for 2017, as compared with last year.

 

          It is true that the donor base of UN-Women, comprising 108 countries, is one of the widest among the United Nations. However, we must also consider that only five countries provide more than 50% of county contributions, and more than 40% of total contributions. 　Therefore, I would like to invite UN-Women to further elaborate its strategy to make its donor base more robust and sustainable, while reiterating that financing projections should be well realistic.

 

          To conclude, we think that discussions on the draft of the new Strategic Plan are going in the right direction, and we hope that it will be adopted by consensus at the second regular session in September.

 

I thank you, Mme. President.