Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, dear partners,

Good afternoon.

On behalf of UNDP, UNFPA and UNICEF, I am delighted to welcome you to the UN compound for a joint Member States Briefing on the China Country Programme Documents (CPDs) for the 2026-2030 period of our three agencies.

As esteemed members of our respective Executive Boards, we would like to present to you the development priorities of our forthcoming CPDs.

As per requirements, these align with and support the realisation of the United Nations Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework 2026-2030. As you will see, the SDCF priorities follow the same overarching three pillars as the current ones, but with an emphasis this time on major transitions including the SDGs, the demographic transition and the transition high- income country. Our head of RCO a.i. is here with us to briefly run you through the framework and respond to related questions.

The main purpose of this meeting is to share the rationales and building blocks of the three CPDs and to invite your feedback and insights to facilitate smooth approval of the Programme Documents by the Executive Boards at the second regular sessions in end August (for UNDP and UNFPA) and early September (for UNICEF).

The official “comment period” will open with the publication of the CPDs on the respective Executive Board websites on June 2nd for UNDP and UNFPA and on June 10th for UNICEF.

The window for official submissions will last three weeks. It will be followed by further revisions to the Programme Documents on the back of Member States governments’ feedback.

Before going into each agency’s CPD presentations, I would like to highlight a few common points that may come up in our discussions, and in particular the question: why do we have country programmes in the world’s second largest economy?

According to the World Bank’s country classification by income level, China is an upper middle-income country, and thus, eligible for a country programme.[i]

Based on the current GNI per capita trajectory, it is projected that China will cross the threshold to high income country and graduate to net contributing country (NCC) status within the programme period. Taking into consideration the two-year transition following graduation, the Executive Board mandated funding formula[ii] for upper middle-income countries is expected apply for the full country programme period (2026-2030).

From the perspective of the Sustainable Development Goals, China is a country that continues to face complex development challenges:

• According to the World Bank, the proportion of people living below the UMIC poverty line of $6.85/ per day stood at 17% in 2021.[iii]
• Demographic shifts are exacerbating existing challenges and risk opening new divides:
  • China's population is aging with 217 million people aged 65 and above, accounting for 15% of the total population.[iv] This number is expected to reach 30% by 2050.[v]
  • A high number of children affected by migration or left physically behind with care givers.[vi]
• Regional disparities remain elevated, with rural communities recording compounded vulnerabilities – based on economic, digital, aging, skills and gender divides.
  • The urban-rural income ratio stands at 2.34 (having peaked at 3.14 in 2007).[vii]
• China is also the world’s largest GHG emitter, accounting for 30.1% of the global share in 2023.[viii]

At the same time, no other country in the world has lifted as many people out of extreme poverty as China, namely 770m over the 40 year period since the reform and opening up. And, no other country is investing as heavily in the green economy transformation as China accounting for 47% of the world’s total installed capacity in renewables (2024).

Given its size, capacity, and resources, China is critical for the advancement of the Sustainable Development Goals, the Paris Agreement, and global agendas. As such, the alignment of China’s development vision with the SDGs, the Pact for the Future, and international environmental agreements is critical.

These global agendas don’t stand a chance to be achieved without China's contributions.

Furthermore, the shared timeline of both the SDGs and China’s next five-year plan leading to the year 2030 is emblematic of this important connection.

The next CPD cycle is a golden opportunity to join hands for the last mile push to 2030, for the development of solutions that don’t just advance both national and global agendas but also do so at the speed and scale that is needed to realize them.

Our aim is thus to leverage China’s commitments and investments into sustainable development to maximize SDG impact, domestically as well as overseas through engagement in international development cooperation. This will include piloting and co-developing innovative development solutions, which can also provide valuable lessons with the potential to be applied in other developing contexts, helping to advance global progress towards the 2030 Agenda and the Pact for the Future.

These will be programmes for a country in transition. To this point, each of the following presentations will highlight the step-change from the current cycle, from the perspective of each of the three agencies represented here.

Thank you

[i] For the current 2025 fiscal year, upper middle-income economies are those with a GNI per capita (2023) between $4,516 and $14,005. China’s GNI per capita (Atlas method) in 2023 was $13,390. (World Bank: here and here)
[ii] “Funding of differentiated physical presence” (DP/2013/2015)
[iii] https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SI.POV.UMIC?locations=CN. Most recent data point is for 2021
[iv] State Council, Oct 2024
[v] UN Population Division Data Portal: Population by age and sex
[vi] National Bureau of Statistics of China, UNICEF China, UNFPA China (2023), ‘What the 2020 Census Can Tell Us About Children in China: Facts and Figures’.
[vii] National Bureau of Statistics. https://www.stats.gov.cn/sj/zxfb/202501/t20250117_1958325.html
[viii]  GHG emissions of all world countries (2024). https://edgar.jrc.ec.europa.eu/report_2024