Workshop: UNICEF Cambodia Programme Review

H.E. Kitti Settha Pandita CHHAY THAN, Senior Minister, Minister of Planning, Royal Government of Cambodia,

UNICEF Regional Representative, Marcoluigi Corsi

UNICEF Representative, Foroogh

Excellencies, Ambassadors, Colleagues, and Friends,

It is an honor to join you all this morning at the UNICEF Cambodia Programme Review Meeting.

Last week, the UN Country Team came together for a similar reflection, as we are halfway through our Cooperation Framework. The UNICEF review meeting is much further ahead and is a timely input to that process.

We share the same conviction.  It is important to reflect on what we have learned about dealing with crisis and uncertainty that came with the COVID-19 pandemic.

Why is this important?

Because every crisis is an opportunity for transformation if we choose to take it.

Transformation can take place if we actively learn from how we responded to disruptions and change brought about by the pandemic. Transformation can happen if we are able to reimagine new possibilities.

In this process, we ask ourselves,

What are new development pathways that the pandemic has created?

Have we kept the big picture to frame our analysis and our understanding of systems change?

How can the UN support innovation and ensure that pandemic recovery creates opportunities for a more inclusive, sustainable and equitable future for the Cambodian people and the generations to come?

From the implementation of the socio-economic response and CSDG priorities especially during the pandemic, we have learnt that when the UN system comes together, when we learn from each other, we are able to prioritize the needs of the most vulnerable, we can contribute to transformational change.

UNICEF is an integral part of the UN family in Cambodia and one that drives joint results and innovation. In the context of UN Development System Reform, I highly commend UNICEF for its leadership in advancing collaboration, coherence, effectiveness, and efficiency. Let me cite 5 examples of UNICEF leadership in the areas of UN programmatic response, normative principles, and in partnerships and innovations.

On the COVID-19 programmatic response: Vaccination, social protection and education.

• Vaccination: I recognize UNICEF’s leadership, together with WHO and partners, in support to the government in the development and implementation of the National Deployment and Vaccination Plan (NDVP), access to COVID-19 vaccines and its roll out, and over-all in promoting risk communication and community engagement in the health response to the pandemic. We’ve been inspired by the creative campaigns of UNICEF in raising awareness about COVID-19 preventive measures among the public.

• Social Protection: The UN supported the government in identifying policy options for social protection measures, designing the implementation of cash transfers to poor households and vulnerable populations, registering poor households, and monitoring and evaluating; scale up of the social protection programmes. As the co-chair of UNDAF outcome 1 and the UN lead for Social Protection, we have learnt from UNICEF about focusing on the most vulnerable, in particular children, persons with disabilities, migrants in building resilient social protection systems.
• Education/Human Capabilities: I also note the strategic contribution of UNICEF to support the education sector during the pandemic – so that children can continue learning during school closures, safe reopening, and bridging the digital and human capability divide made more pronounced by COVID.

On norms and standards:

• Human Rights and Gender Equality: UNICEF plays a proactive role in UN’s joint advocacy on human rights, whether these be children and women’s rights, in accessing education, health, social protection, WASH services, to ensuring voice and agency of young Cambodians. As the co-chair of the Prevention of Sexual Exploitation and Abuse, UNICEF uses its comparative advantage in protection issues to make zero tolerance of sexual exploitation and abuse a reality for the whole UN Country Team.

On Partnerships and Innovation:

• I commend the excellent approach of UNICEF in expanding partnership and engagement, including planning and budgeting, with the sub-national administration and working with communities to access social services. UNICEF’s close working relationship with local authorities and communities deepens understanding of the situation at the grassroots, and will become even more important in the pandemic recovery efforts.

Looking ahead, I count on UNICEF to leverage its comparative advantage in support of the UN system’s vision to support the government achieve inclusive, equitable, sustainable recovery, where every Cambodian can enjoy their human rights.

Many opportunities remain to be optimized as a UN Country Team:

• Embedding human rights in everything that we do
• Moving away from project and/or ad hoc response to systems thinking
• Deepening humanitarian-development convergence
• Strengthening sub-national and local capabilities
• Nurturing innovation and working in strategic partnership with private sector
• Mobilizing sustainable financing for recovery and acceleration of SDG achievement

We will need to shift towards more integrated policy solutions commensurate with the ambition of the 2030 Agenda with its Sustainable Development Goals. It is my hope that this programmatic review can yield some of the seeds for these big bold ideas for system transformation.

Thank you.