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The Annual Session of the UNICEF Executive Board

Welcome to the annual session of UNICEF Executive Board, which is being held only a few weeks after the hectic work for the Special Session for Children.

Soon, the Secretariat will make general comments about our working agenda, which will be complemented by a report from the Executive Director Carol Bellamy. From my viewpoint as President, I would like to draw to your attention some of the activities in which the Board and the Presidency of the Executive Board were involved since our last meeting in January of this year, and which I consider especially relevant to our discussions for the next days.

I would like to begin referring to a meeting held on Mars 14 to brief the Members of the Executive Board about sexual exploitation and humanitarian personnel. I believe it was a great opportunity to have a detailed account of the UNICEF response to the facts reported in West Africa, as well as the coordination efforts made by OCHA in recent months. I am sure we will have the opportunity to mention this briefing in our discussions.

Perhaps one of the main events of the last few months was the field visit to Brazil and Viet Nam. The visit to Brazil was a success and had a high number of participants, including the Minister of Social Development from Trinidad and Tobago, whom I have personally invited to report about the visit.

The visit to Viet Nam, on the other hand, was very important, since it was the first time that a joint segment was implemented with the visit to the same country of the UNDP/FNUAP Executive Board. Ambassador Dirk Van Der Berg, from Netherlands, who is also President of UNDP/FNUAP Executive Board, and myself, had the honour to chair the joint segment.

The adopted framework allowed us to approach substantive issues with all the agencies of the United Nations system, donors, Bretton Woods institutions, non-governmental organizations and Viet Nam authorities at all levels. We had the opportunity to further explore issues such as the Millennium Development Goals, the United Nations Development Assistance Framework (UNDAF), as well as the harmonization and simplification of procedures. I hope we have enough time to share their points of view with the participants of these missions, and especially to hear the comments of the Viet Nam Government.

Another issue I would like to bring to your attention is the relaunching of the Internet page about the Executive Board in the UNICEF Web page. I was informed by the Secretariat that they are redesigning it to have a fast and useful information resource that reflects the works, the discussions and the decisions of the Executive Board. I invite all of you to make suggestions on the issue through the Board Secretary, Mr. Caillaux. We hope that we will have the final product before our next meeting in September.

Another very important aspect is an activity that is going to be held in West Africa around September of this year to examine, from a subregional perspective, the MTSP priorities. It will be a similar exercise to the one held at Cartagena in November 2001, when the Latin American and the Caribbean Group made a similar exercise. The Board Vice-president, Ambassador Crispin Grey Johnson from Gambia, has taken the lead on this initiative.

At the end of our session, under "other issues" and in an informal way, we have reserved some space to begin a general discussion about two issues, both at the request of one of the Vice-presidents. The first one is related to the working methods of the Executive Board (I hope you have received a communication that I circulated last May 29 informing about it) and the second is related to the emergency answers and the Mid-Term Strategic Plan.

I would like to finish by thanking all the Board Members for their hard work in the last months. I invite you to keep the same level of commitment for the rest of the year.