NATIONAL INTERVENTION – UNDP STRUCTURED FUNDING DIALOGUE
Agenda Item
Executive Board of UNDP, UNFPA, and UNOPS
Second Regular Session
28 August 2024
Statement by Deputy Permanent Representative H.E. Rebecca Bryant, Australian Mission to the United Nations
Chair,
Australia aligns to the joint statement delivered by New Zealand. We are a strong and long-standing supporter of multi-year, predictable core funding. We welcome the new Funding Compact and its central aim to strengthen the UN’s funding base, while enhancing UN accountability for results and impact.
For Australia, the business case for core funding is clear:
First, core funding is vital to the effective operation of UNDP. It is the primary funding source that equips UNDP to be agile and innovative, and to respond effectively to emerging crises.
Second, if we continue to have high expectations of UNDP and demand it to be responsive, transparent, and accountable, then we must also furnish UNDP with the core funds to help finance and stabilise these critical functions.
Third, core funding supports the independence and neutrality of the UN development system. It enables UNDP to deliver on their mandates in-line with internationally agreed principles. Core funding ensures agencies can demonstrate the transformative value of multilateralism.
Australia is concerned by the drift away from predictable core funding for UNDP and the broader UN development system. This trend risks fragmentation of the system and weakens its ability to plan effectively.
We encourage those Member States, with the systems to do so, to provide stable, predictable, and multi-year core funding.
I would like to conclude with one ask and one question:
We understand UNDP’s Business Model review will examine how UNDP delivers value in the face of decreasing core and finite resources. We ask that Member States be given sufficient time to digest the review before we are called on to consider decisions or determine next steps.
Australia welcomes the recent adoption of the Multidimensional Vulnerability Index, which we see as an important step in improving our understanding of vulnerability. What is UNDP’s thinking about the MVI? Will it be considered, alongside other key UNDP indices, as an advocacy tool or as a data reference point to shape UNDP programmes?
Thank you.