As prepared for delivery

1. Introduction

Mr. President,

Distinguished Members of the Executive Board, 

It is an honour to be here with you during this annual session of the UNDP/UNFPA/UNOPS Executive Board. 

Allow me to start with a reflection from my recent visit to Syria in April with the UN Emergency Relief Coordinator, Tom Fletcher. I saw what 14 years of war leaves behind. 

Flattened neighbourhoods. 

Streets and fields turned into daily hazards. 

Today, four in five Syrians live in poverty.

Conflict destroys in months, what took decades to build.

This is development in reverse.

And it is what we now risk across the Middle East. 

UNDP analysis shows that the compounding economic shocks of the military escalation could push 32 million people globally into poverty due to higher energy prices, growing food insecurity and weaker growth.

Multiple shocks, one outcome: 

Deepening vulnerability and insecurity.

But Syria is also a reminder of something else.

Recovery can happen.

It is happening.

Amid devastation, UNDP, together with its partners, is working alongside governments and communities to move from survival to stability; from stability to prosperity.

Bridging the gap between humanitarian assistance and development. 

From demining farmland and neighbourhoods.

To restoring basic services.

Helping businesses to open their doors again.

Rebuilding livelihoods.

And allowing people to return home.

This is development in action.

Strategic co-investments with our partners in a shared future. 

Because development is not abstract.

It is jobs.

It is services.

It is security.

It is freedom.

And it is trust that when these elements exist, societies hold.

When we invest in functioning services, trusted institutions and economic opportunity, we build safer societies that withstand shocks and recover faster. 

Development is our first line of defence against instability, fragility and conflict.

It is investing in the building blocks of human prosperity, together.

And that is one of the smartest long-term investments we can make.

2. A Changing Development Landscape

Excellencies, development needs today are growing exponentially. 

There are more simultaneous crises and conflicts than at any time since the Second World War. 

More climate-related hazards. Low-income countries are being hit by up to 8 times as many hazards as they were 30 years ago. 

At the same time, the traditional development model we inherited was built on assumptions that no longer hold: 

Stable growth.

Predictable geopolitics.

A rules-based order.

Expanding public resources.

In 2025, Official Development Assistance (ODA) dropped by 23.1 per cent.

The largest fall on record. 

UNDP’s core funding fell by 24 per cent over the same period. 

These are structural shifts.

At the same time, something else is changing. Demand.

When I talk to governments and development partners, your message is consistent.

You are asking us to be partners in co-designing more integrated, strategic policies.

In strengthening institutions, creating inclusive economic opportunities and integrating women into new labour markets.

Working together to unlock domestic resources and mobilize private capital.

Tackling challenges like the responsible use of artificial intelligence (AI) or using strategic foresight to help plan in a context of deep uncertainty.

The development shift is clear.

From funding individual projects to enabling entire systems.

From aid to catalytic investment.

3. A Changing UNDP

As the nature of development changes, UNDP continues to evolve with it.

We are more agile.
More focused.

And more connected to the realities countries face today.

So today I want to explain how UNDP is adapting.

How we are scaling flagship offers to implement our Strategic Plan and maximise our impact with partners. 
How we are seeking greater cost-efficiencies and value for money.

And how we are reshaping our delivery model.

We are building on strong foundations.

UNDP is present in 170 countries and territories.

We have built trusted relationships with governments and partners over decades. 

Over the four years of the last Strategic Plan, we delivered $19.6 billion, serving 1.1 billion people in 2025 alone.
In 2025, one-quarter of UNDP's resources were funded directly by governments in the programme countries we serve. 

In everything we do, gender equality drives results. Gender equality is not a side agenda. It is how development becomes more effective and more sustainable.

Our new Gender Equality Strategy (2026–2029) presented at this session explains how we do – through ambition, focus, and working in close partnership with UN Women and the UN system.

UNDP brings something unique to the UN development system: We connect three strands from end-to-end. Policy.
Programming. Presence. 

Distinguished Board members, you saw this in action during your recent visit to Panama.

You saw how UNDP operates across the whole value chain of development.

For example, in technical education and skills development. Supporting national strategies. Mobilising finance, including a $70 million loan from the Development Bank of Latin American and the Caribbean. Implementing solutions with other agencies – UNOPS, UNESCO, UNFPA - under the coordination of the Resident Coordinator.

We do this, thanks to the trust from government. Our long-term local presence. Our diverse partnerships. And our core funding. 

With those ingredients, in 2025, we crowded in another $10 in non-core for every dollar of core funding you contributed. 

That delivers even more for our partner countries:

One million dollars of catalytic capital in Afghanistan - unlocking $55 million in micro, small and medium enterprise (MSME) finance in partnership with UNCDF. 

Key Performance Indicator verification on a $3.5 billion Sustainability-Linked Bond in Thailand. 

$165 million pledged for the Pacific Resilience Facility.

That is the shift: From financing isolated projects, to building the prosperity that drives human development.

This is the ambitious shift that UNDP is making to remain relevant for you in a changing world. 

4. Moving Beyond Crisis 

Nowhere is this shift more urgently needed than in crisis and fragile settings.

Conflict.

Acute crises, protracted crises.

High risk and fragile contexts. 

Countries and communities facing a complex web of interrelated challenges that undermine stability, services and livelihoods.

This is why development in crisis settings must not be an afterthought.

It is prevention.

It is response.

It is stabilization and recovery.

When a crisis hits, UNDP is already there. There before. During. After.

First responders often rely on our established infrastructure, our presence, and our trusted connections to save lives.

Because the humanitarian-development-peace nexus is not a relay race where we each wait our turn. 

Development cannot wait until the emergency phase is over.

Done right, crisis response includes development from day one.

As humanitarian actors or UN missions draw down, the responsibility shifts.

To governments, to UN Country Teams - with UNDP as the development and operational backbone - that carry forward recovery, long-term peacebuilding and resilience. 

Helping governments to strengthen institutions, restore basic services, sustain jobs.

Supporting communities to regain livelihoods, rebuild lives. 

I see this every time I visit our teams in the field. 

In Haiti, where restoring security also means reopening schools, rebuilding institutions, and opening up jobs for young people.

In Gaza, where cash-for-work programmes are helping people, especially women, regain hope for a life beyond a refugee camp.

In Jamaica, where after Hurricane Melissa, government and communities told me that UNDP's value was not only helping them recover, but helping them build back more resilient livelihoods for the future.

And in Ukraine, where in 2025 UNDP helped restore or maintain energy services for 6.6 million people; and unlock over $1.4 billion in European Investment Bank financing for socio-economic recovery.

In 2025, UNDP delivered $2.6 billion in crisis settings - more than half our total global delivery.

We support the UN system to deliver.  UNDP is proud to host and fund UN Volunteers, which enabled 17,169 volunteers to serve with 59 UN entities in 2025, mostly in crisis settings where they bridge capacity gaps, strengthen local engagement and enable agile humanitarian action.

UNDP’s new flagship builds on our longstanding experience to help countries ‘Move Beyond Crisis’.

It solidifies UNDP’s unique added value. 

Through concrete, integrated packages of action, designed to help countries and communities: 

Prepare and prevent crises through early warning, conflict prevention and resilient institutions. 

Respond and recover from crises through restoring local markets, jobs and essential services.

Transition and transform towards longer-term stability and prosperity under national and local leadership. 

Moving beyond crisis also means working in partnership. For example, in May, the High Commissioner for Refugees and I launched a UNDP-UNHCR Collaboration Framework that reflects a shared conviction: by working together, we can do far more for forcibly displaced and stateless people, and the communities that host them, than either of our organizations can alone.

Revitalizing our work in crisis is one of five flagships to accelerate implementation of our new Strategic Plan.

These are areas where we have already demonstrated results. Where we have something distinctive or unique to offer. And where we can achieve scale.

5. Flagships to Accelerate Implementation of our Strategic Plan

Jobs for Prosperity Facility

This is about creating the conditions for dignified, income-generating jobs.

Some 1.2 billion young people will enter the workforce over the next decade, yet only 400 million jobs will be created. 

At the same time, despite working, 300 million people are still in poverty. 

The challenge is not only unemployment.

It is work that does not pay enough. High-paying jobs not being created in low-income regions. Or skills that do not match demand.

Every year, hundreds of thousands of young people enter the labour market. They are their countries’ greatest asset.  But too often they struggle to find work. 

Many of our partner countries need scalable, practical pathways into productive work. And UNDP is helping develop them. 

In Kenya, for example, where I met government, business leaders and young people, our conversation came back to one word: jobs. Our partnership with the Kenya Private Sector Alliance aims to create pathways to 150,000 jobs for young people. Our timbuktoo GreenTech Hub is accelerating homegrown GreenTech ventures across Africa as scalable ecosystems. 

We do this worldwide.

In Egypt, small and medium enterprises expanded and created nearly 120,000 jobs. 

In Papau New Guinea, solar powered innovation hubs delivered digital skills to 65,000 people in off-grid communities to enhance their employability.

In India, digital parametric crop insurance now covers 42 million farmers, cutting the claims process from months to weeks.

In Cambodia, investment in its social protection programme is returning $9 for every $1 invested. This is part of a larger picture. 

In 2025, with governments, we supported 572 million people on paths to prosperity in more than 120 countries. 

We helped close gaps in social protection and expand care systems in 16 countries, enabling women’s access to jobs and political participation.

And – because jobs and secure incomes mean people can save or borrow - we helped 291 million people to get access to financial services, over half of them women.

The Jobs for Prosperity Facility will support governments to do four things. 

First, identify where future jobs will come from. Sectors like healthcare, agriculture, tourism, infrastructure and value-added manufacturing. 

Second, match skills with employer demand. Identify needs for upskilling and training.

Third, address bottlenecks – policy, regulatory, and institutional - that block investment and job creation.

Finally, create investment-ready sector pipelines that can create more, better-paid jobs.

The World Bank brings large-scale financing and macro policy reform.

The ILO sets the standards.

UNCDF - hosted by UNDP, at the service of the UN system - provides catalytic capital, de-risking investment where markets will not move first. 

And UNDP helps governments translate policy and ambition into structured, investable pipelines that can increase income and improve futures. 

Climate Promise: Forward 

When UNDP launched the Climate Promise in 2019, our goal was to help countries raise their climate ambition. 

We succeeded. 

Today we are the largest implementer of climate and nature assistance in the UN system, with a portfolio of nearly $3 billion in adaptation and mitigation initiatives across 140 countries. 

We supported over 100 countries to enhance their NDCs in 2020, and again in 2025. 

Over 70 per cent of NDCs submitted by developing countries reflect UNDP’s and our partners’ support.

At the same time, our Nature Pledge has aligned these efforts with ecosystems and biodiversity. 

It has advanced projects in 145 countries, with $14 billion in co-financing.

Because climate action and nature are not separate agendas.

They are blueprints for sustainable development.  Woven into the Integrated National Financing Frameworks (INFFs), where we are a major partner.

Helping build resilience to geopolitical shocks, improve food security, increase jobs, and grow economies. 

The gap is execution.

Policies are often fragmented.

Financing is inadequate, slow and disconnected.

And many countries lack the means and capacity to turn ambition into bankable projects and attract investment at scale.

This is where UNDP comes in.

In 2025, we helped unlock nearly $1 billion in additional financing for national adaptation plans and reached 222 million people, including 97 million women across 81 countries, through climate adaptation initiatives.

Under the direction of the Secretary-General, UNDP is bringing together 30 UN entities to support at least 100 countries to integrate NDC priorities directly into national development plans and implement solutions.

How? 

By mobilizing resources.

By collaborating with Resident Coordinators and UN Country Teams to prioritize NDC measures through UN cooperation frameworks and programming documents. 

By supporting governments to move upstream to shape policy; Midstream to link NDCs to integrated national financing frameworks, increase access to finance and build investment pipelines; and Downstream to implement solutions in energy, biodiversity, land, food, pollution prevention and loss and damage. And by supporting the Government of Türkiye’s, as the President of COP 31, implementation mechanism (BRIDGE) to translate global processes into country realities.

Governance

In 2025, UNDP helped strengthen governance for 452 million people across 120 countries.

We support public institutions to make tangible improvements to people’s daily lives – deliver services, access justice, participate in political processes. 

Like the 3.3 million people - 51% of them women – who obtained legal identity between 2022 and 2025.

Or the health portfolio of $195 million (2021-2025), co-financed by the government of Turkmenistan, that delivered access to over 120 essential medicines and upgraded 121 health facilities.

And the 911.3 million registered voters supported in 78 elections in 51 countries across 2022–2025.

For UNDP, governance is not just a sector. It is central to everything we do. In almost every country office, governance is part of our country programmes. We are your partner of choice.

Worldwide we see growing demands for more effective and inclusive governance, yet a widening gap between people and the institutions meant to serve them.

Governance under pressure is not new. But the sources of that pressure have changed.

Political polarization has intensified. 

Organized crime and illicit economies have expanded their influence. 

Digital platforms and artificial intelligence are transforming the public sphere. 

We are working with you to tackle these challenges.

We recently launched, with the Presidents of Uruguay, Bolivia and the Dominican Republic, our flagship report Democracies Under Pressure in Latin America and the Caribbean. It looks at the interactions between democracy, the state and human development.

The report we co-produced with the Government of Gambia last year, The Future of Governance in the Sahel, focuses on (re)building social cohesion and public trust. Crucial elements to the region’s future. 

Development is about improving people’s daily lives. Governance is an essential part of that.

I saw that in Thailand, where I had the honour of presenting “Gender Seal Gold” to the Mayor of Bangkok. Recognising progress in making cities safer for women, building human security.

Or our collaboration with the Statistical Service in Ghana: empowering citizens to rate their satisfaction with healthcare, education and government services they use every day. 

We are supporting over 130 countries with their digitalization efforts - and over 30 on responsible use of AI. Because technology is an enabler - for more inclusive governance, and quality public services.

In Moldova we helped set up a digitalized compensation mechanism that protected more than 60% of households from energy price shocks.

In Bangladesh we helped establish 6,000+ digital centres and digitize 500+ public services, improving access for 50 million people.

In Malawi, a digital legal identity system now covers 98% of the population, bringing them into the digital economy.

Finally, effective governance is a precondition for the private sector to invest with confidence. 

In 2025, UNDP supported more than 5,000 private sector actors carrying out human rights and environmental due diligence, helping de-risk investments and strengthen responsible business practices.

Governance is the operating system that underpins development across the board. 

It expands choice and opportunity. 

Ultimately, it determines whether development is sustained or undermined.

This brings me to another flagship of the Strategic Plan.

Investment Accelerator

The annual investment gap to reach the SDGs is some $4 trillion. 

But the barrier to investment is not lack of capital. It is connecting capital to opportunity. It is policy and regulatory uncertainty, high perceived risk, a limited pipeline of bankable projects.

These obstacles won’t disappear on their own. But they can be overcome. Through deliberate policy choices, strategic partnerships and stronger public-private collaboration.

This is the rationale behind UNDP’s new Investment Accelerator. 

It partners with government, development finance institutions and private investors to translate national development priorities into projects that can be financed.

How?

Upstream – by addressing policy gaps and regulatory weaknesses to strengthen the investment environment.

Midstream – by building a pipeline of investment-ready opportunities.

And downstream – by providing technical assistance to bring deals to a close. 

For domestic, regional and international investors, the Investment Accelerator offers a structured entry point. 

Creating bankable opportunities that serve development goals.

Partnering with the EU Global Gateway, Trade over Aid and south-south investment. Helping ensure these initiatives translate into concrete gains for development. 

Like the support UNDP provided through the EU Global Gateway in 2025 to Ecuador’s Development Bank (BanEcuador) to create the conditions for green bond issuance and accelerate the rural energy transition.

Or the African Continental Free Trade Area (ACFTA), a $3 trillion market in the making. UNDP is already working with partners to build digital payment infrastructure, trade facilitation systems and investment pipelines. To help translate the enormous potential of the ACFTA into reality. 

The Investment Accelerator is starting with climate and NDC implementation.

We will expand over time into other demand-led windows. The energy, biodiversity, digital, jobs and social sectors. 

We are already seeing proof of concept.

In Mauritania, UNDP's work on energy regulations and pilot mini-grids unlocked $70 million in IFI financing.

In Ecuador, our support helped launch certified deforestation-free coffee (now generating 1,000 jobs and expanding to new markets). 

In Tunisia, our upstream policy work triggered a national biogas tariff and a new waste-to-energy facility. 

Through PISTA - our Platform for Investment Support and Technical Assistance - $2.5 million has already helped climate-aligned projects across 16 African countries. Six of those early initiatives are positioned to unlock over $400 million in investment. 

We work alongside UNCDF, which is one of only two UN agencies with access to the EU’s blending operations funding window - EUR150 million to start with in guarantees, beginning with a Sustainable Cities Guarantee Facility in Africa and Asia.  

UNDP-led policy derisking, plus UNCDF early-stage financial derisking: a powerful combination to unlock further investment.

6. Internal reforms

Adapting to a changing world and delivering these ambitious flagships starts within UNDP. 

Last year, as the funding outlook tightened, we moved early. And we continue to adapt.

We put in place spending controls to manage immediate financial risk, while protecting the integrity of our oversight and accountability systems. The result was a fully balanced 2025 institutional budget.

We continued to increase efficiencies - estimated at $28.9 million in savings in 2025, up 55% from 2024.
We launched an ongoing process of workforce optimization to support UNDP's transition toward a more agile, flatter, and functionally aligned organization. 

We have begun relocation of some 400 positions to Bonn and Madrid, saving on average 17-20 per cent per post.

Through our ongoing digital transformation, we are working faster, smarter and closer to the people and countries we serve. Over 18,000 colleagues now use AI tools daily, for stronger development impact. 

In 2025, we received our 19th consecutive clean audit opinion from the UN Board of Auditors.

We were ranked the second most transparent UN organisation on the Aid Transparency Index.

And we maintained our 100% compliance with financial disclosure filing requirements. 

In all this, our principles are simple: 

Cost containment must go hand-in-hand with protecting delivery capacity.

Safeguarding our core strengths, our presence, our people.

Investing strategically in those capabilities that countries need. 

In line with UN80, it is about becoming more agile, more responsive.

And ensuring that every dollar maximizes impact on the ground. 

I’m proud to report that for the year 2025, 91 cents of every programme dollar was spent directly on programming.

Excellencies, these are times of great change and uncertainty. 

UNDP demands a great deal from its personnel. We are grateful to all our personnel for their continued commitment and dedication to those we serve. Especially in uncertain times.

We will continue to invest in our personnel through our dedicated People for 2030 Strategy, which enables us to deliver better for you.

Distinguished Board Members, 

All the elements that I have spoken about today, all the results we have and plan to deliver, all the investments we need to ensure UNDP continues to meet your needs - depend on our core funding. 

Core funding that supports our ability to respond to crisis, our capacity to deliver to those in greatest need.

To the Member States who continue to champion core funding: thank you. 

You do not just provide financial support. 

You sustain our end-to-end programming capacity; and equip us to serve as the backbone of the UN system.

7. Integrator and Operational Backbone of the UN System

Development is not something we do alone. 

Development involves governments and civil society, national and local organisations, public and private players: a huge range of talent and resources.

Bringing those together is what we do.

As the support platform to the UN development system, and as the UN integrator, mandated by the General Assembly through resolution 72/279, UNDP is at the service of the system.

We help to cohere efforts. To maximise the system’s collective impact.

All our Country Programme Documents are aligned and derived from UN Sustainable Development Cooperation Frameworks, confirmed by the Resident Coordinators.

Integrated National Financing Frameworks, socio-economic impact assessments, our portfolio approach operationalized in more than 100 countries and “SDG Push”: this is how we implement our integrator function in practice. 

As a current example, we are conducting about 50 socio-economic response plans in countries most affected by the crisis in the Middle East, including from Africa, Asia Pacific and Small Island Developing States. These plans will provide governments, UNCTs and partners with granular data on risk exposure and menus of response options, including jobs, climate, governance and investment.   

We host the UN Office of South South Cooperation (UNOSSC). With its system-wide strategy, UNOSSC has shared over 1,000 Southern development solutions. And it manages four dedicated trust funds to translate cooperation into development results on the ground.

And, despite financial constraints and significant drops in core funding, our contribution to the Resident Coordinator system increased from $17.3 million in 2024 to $22.2 million in 2025.

These are serious investments in the coherence of the system. 

But we are also the operational backbone of the system. Many UN organisations depend on UNDP every day to run their businesses.

Our Shared Service Centre serves 70+ UN entities worldwide. In 2025, that included executing $2.3 billion in payroll for 50,000 personnel across UNDP and 62 UN entities.

At country level, we manage 136 common premises, providing common services to 46 UN entities in 116 UN Country Teams. Delivering economies of scale for the entire system.

We are a strong supporter of pooled funding, meeting the 15% target for joint programmes of the Funding Compact and remaining in 2025 one of the largest participating UN organizations in pooled funds. 

The Multi-Partner Trust Fund Office, hosted by UNDP, disbursed $1 billion of pooled funds in 2025, including 40 UN entities, in over 100 countries.

This is what our commitment to collective action looks like. This is how we continue to implement the 2018 UN development system reform. 

And how we are actively contributing to the Secretary-General’s UN80 Initiative, helping to advance workpackages like Expertise on Demand and the Unified Services Roadmap from ambition to action.

Conclusion

Excellencies,

Mr. President,

Distinguished Members of the Board,

Development is indivisible from security, stability, economic growth, social cohesion and trust.

UNDP plays a unique role in building the connections and partnerships through which development flourishes. 

My ask to the Board today is this:

Think about development differently. Think of it as integral to every discussion you join, every decision you lead.

Development goes far beyond UNDP and those agencies we label as “development.” It is a dimension of every part of the UN’s work. Of every multilateral forum where you represent your governments.

UNDP has a clear path forward. But we cannot do it alone.

We need you to take it forward.

We need your partnership and support to make development happen.

Thank you.