Excellencies, Mr. Steiner,
Thank you very much for your active contribution to today’s dialogue. It was very useful to have this exchange and to know our priorities. I thank you, Mr. Steiner, for your efforts, as well as that of your colleagues to reach out and engage with us in preparation for the upcoming Session. Thank you. We look forward to continuing our discussion next week.
Dear Ambassadors, I would request your delegations’ active participation next week. It’s very important that we be there, to bring up our issues and priorities. My experience from UNICEF last year is that participation from our region, especially from the programme countries across the regions, is minimal. This could be attributed to lack of necessary staff support to follow these technical discussions. But it’s important that the discussion in the EXB is not limited only to the donor countries. This would also ensure balanced discussions, without politics taking over. We are seeing a growing trend of that in the Boards.
In that respect, my ardent request to UNDP Secretariat and management would be to ensure that the discussions, documents, reports and presentations do not become too technical. We do not have the luxury of expert support from our capitals; most of the time, our small staff contingent have to cover multiple areas of work. Thus, we need to keep things uncomplicated.
Having said that, I thank you once again, for all your support. And we look forward to a productive session next week. You can count on our full support and engagement.
I thank you all. Have a good day.