Cross-regional Statement by Sweden on UNICEF Humanitarian Action

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Mr/madam president, 

I have the honour to deliver this statement on behalf of Australia, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, Czechia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Malta, the Republic of Moldova, New Zeeland, Norway, the Kingdom of the Netherlands, Poland, Spain, Switzerland, Ukraine, the United Kingdom, the United States of America and my own country, Sweden.

At the outset let me express our full solidarity with the people in Türkiye and Syria who were struck by disaster a few days ago.

We are gravely concerned about the worsening humanitarian situation globally, in particular the growing vulnerability of children in crises. Last year, Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine added further to a humanitarian caseload that was already at record levels. The Global Humanitarian Overview for 2023 is a sobering read: 339 million people need assistance, and the cost of helping 230 million of them amounts to over 51 billion US dollars. If, one year ago, anyone believed that things couldn’t get worse, they have been proven wrong.

We thank UNICEF, in particular its staff and partners on the ground, for its consistent efforts to prevent, mitigate and address humanitarian needs, in particular its staff and implementing partners on the ground.

We take positive note of the fact that 87 per cent of the recommendations in the humanitarian review were implemented or underway by October 2022. We would like to know if there are further updates on implementation. 

In addition, we would like to highlight the following three points:

First, funding: for years, we have emphasized that increased humanitarian funding from traditional donors will not be enough to close the funding gap. Ensuring that the humanitarian community can provide life-saving assistance is a collective imperative for the entire international community.

We reiterate our call on all member states to provide more flexible, multi-year predictable funding for rapid, effective and principled humanitarian action. In this regard we would like to underline that more detailed and frequent reporting on how regular resources and other unearmarked and softly earmarked funding are used for humanitarian action would provide an incentive to donors.

Second, climate: climate change has become one of the main drivers of humanitarian needs. The international community needs to do better in terms of investing in prediction, early action, and building resilience to stem the tide of climate-related challenges and adaptation for communities already feeling the impacts of the climate crisis.

We welcome the launch of the Children’s Climate Risk Index and note that a pilot project was launched in 2022. We encourage UNICEF to accelerate these efforts and would like to ask: what are the Index’s and project’s main challenges.

In the face of these mounting challenges and significant needs, the international community has invested heavily to mitigate crises. Too often, however, we have not managed to address the root causes of these issues. We encourage more integration of humanitarian and development efforts, that emphasises anticipatory action in line with the Secretary-General’s “Early Warning for All”.

Aid needs to be informed by risk and financing allocated in advance. We welcome UNICEF’s ambitions on anticipatory action and would like to see intensified activities in cooperation with other key actors to drive an integrated approach.

We would also like to ask what steps have been taken to minimize the carbon and environmental footprint of UNICEFs humanitarian work.

Third, localization: we welcome that UNICEF exceeds the Grand Bargain target of delivering 25 per cent of humanitarian assistance through local actors, which are often best placed to identify needs and gain access to hard-to-reach areas. We note, however, that the degree of localization varies considerably across countries.

We appreciate UNICEF for its role in the development of the IASC guidance note on overhead cost to local actors and encourage the organization to take steps to ensure a fair distribution of overhead costs.

A concern in this regard is the outsourcing of risks to national and locally recruited staff. We would like to ask whether UNICEF has adequate systems in place to ensure the safety and security of all staff. We strongly condemn all attacks and threats against humanitarian personnel, no matter where they are from.

To conclude, we welcome the report and today’s presentation, which reaffirms UNICEF’s position as a core pillar in the humanitarian community. 

Thank you.