UNICEF reviews progress in 2024 while looking ahead to its new four-year Strategic Plan
Annual session of 2025
NEW YORK, United States of America, 17 June 2025 ─ The UNICEF Executive Board concluded its 2025 annual session last week acknowledging the results the organization achieved for children in 2024 while looking at the challenges ahead in the face of acute uncertainty.
Opening the session, UNICEF Executive Board President for 2025, H.E. Mr. Jonibek Ismoil Hikmat, Permanent Representative of Tajikistan to the United Nations, highlighted the progress made by UNICEF in 2024 despite violent conflicts and climate crises, while also lamenting the current fiscal landscape and context of shrinking official development assistance, which he said comes “at a time when the needs of children are not diminishing but [are] growing more urgent by the hour.”
In her introductory remarks, Executive Director Catherine Russell spoke of the important results achieved in 2024. “UNICEF remains resolute in our mission to uphold the rights and well-being of every child, everywhere,” she said. “But the sudden and sharp global funding crisis puts our critical work at tremendous risk. In 2026, UNICEF projects at least a 20 per cent reduction in total income from 2024 levels… Millions of children risk losing essential services due to funding cuts.”
Results for children in 2024
Several delegations commended UNICEF for the results achieved in 2024, while acknowledging the context of global disruptions and challenges and the changing fiscal landscape in which UNICEF, and the entire UN development system, is now operating.
Presenting the annual report for 2024 of the Executive Director, Ms. Vidhya Ganesh, Director of the Division of Data, Analytics, Planning and Monitoring, said “UNICEF has maintained its delivery on the ground with life-saving support where needed and continuing to fine-tune the way we engage with the Governments to be able to provide the evidence and the technical assistance on policies and programmes, so that we can continue to have impact in cost-efficient ways, aiming at scale”.
Of note in the report was the fact that UNICEF reached or came close to reaching milestones for 14 out of the 18 result areas in its Strategic Plan, 2022–2025, and some 70 per cent of the Plan’s output milestones were met or nearly met.
UNICEF reported that the under-5 mortality rate has declined significantly, from 90 deaths per 1,000 live births in 1990 to 37 in 2024. While there is still some distance to be covered to reach the 2030 goal of 25 deaths per 1,000 live births, it is viewed as doable – and indeed is one of the first impact results in the new Strategic Plan, 2026–2029.
The primary school completion rate has reached nearly 88 per cent, from 83 per cent in 2020, yet achieving full completion will require accelerated efforts. Learning poverty and education quality continue to pose challenges.
There were gains in child protection, which were particularly impressive in birth registration, with the rate rising from 63 per cent in 2008 to 77 per cent in 2023. If progress accelerates, the target of 93 per cent by 2030 is within reach.
Across the five Goal Areas of its current Strategic Plan, 2022-2025, UNICEF reported the following strong results in 2024:
- 251 million children under 5 years of age were reached with early detection services for wasting, and 9.3 million were treated for severe wasting and other forms of malnutrition.
- 26 million out-of-school children and adolescents gained access to education, including 9 million in humanitarian settings.
- 17.7 million people were reached with gender-based violence response, prevention, and risk mitigation programming, surpassing the 2024 milestone.
- 33.3 million people were provided with safe water, 18 million with basic sanitation, and 21.6 million with basic hygiene services.
- 3.6 million households were reached with UNICEF-supported humanitarian cash transfers, up from 2.9 million in 2023.
Several delegations highlighted how the strong results UNICEF achieved in 2024 were grounded in robust governance and oversight. The annual session also provided an important opportunity for the Board to receive annual reports on the independent functions: audit and investigations, evaluation and ethics, as well as the annual report on the risk profile of UNICEF – the first of its kind for the organization. The Board adopted decisions on these critical functions at the end of the session.
Responding to humanitarian crises
2024 was a particularly horrific year for children. Conflict, climate-related emergencies and severe economic shocks jeopardized children’s rights – to protection, life and safety, adequate nutrition, education, clean water and healthcare – causing widespread, yet avoidable, suffering.
“Today's crises for children is the result of increasing conflict, the widespread disregard for international law, climate shifts, the growing frequency and severity of public health emergencies, deepening economic disparities and myths and disinformation that undermine our humanitarian mission. These trends have been exacerbated by widespread funding cuts that further limit the ability of the humanitarian system to adequately respond and uphold child rights,” said Ted Chaiban, Deputy Executive Director for Humanitarian Action and Supply Operations. UNICEF reported that, by the end of the year, it had received less than one third of the resources in its humanitarian action for children appeal, and with additional restrictions and limitations.
“Despite these challenges, UNICEF has continued to stay and deliver, especially in complex and high-threat environments, with resolve and courage”, said Mr. Chaiban.
The UNICEF global response on humanitarian action continued unabated – reaching millions of children and families in 448 emergencies across more than 100 countries in 2024. UNICEF continued to work with its many partners to meet the needs of children in humanitarian emergencies. Some concrete examples of its impact in 2024:
- 41 million people accessed clean water and sanitation
- Community-based mental health and psychosocial support services for 22.3 million children and families, up from 13.1 million in 2023.
- Interventions designed to prevent gender-based violence and support survivors accessed by 17.7 million women and children.
- Humanitarian cash assistance for 3.6 million families, up from 2.9 million in 2023.
- Delivery of $1.2 billion worth of supplies in 68 countries in preparation for, or in response to, emergencies, up from about $893 million in 2023.
Several delegations expressed their grave concern over the deteriorating situation of children in conflict situations, commended the UNICEF response and noted the urgency of addressing resource gaps for humanitarian action.
There were calls for UNICEF to build on the momentum of a humanitarian reset – and for its close alignment with the UN80 initiative – to seek a more streamlined and agile architecture that can effectively respond to the current resource constraints and operational challenges.
A future-focused UNICEF: Draft Strategic Plan, 2026–2029
Despite acute uncertainty, UNICEF remains steadfast in its commitment to advocate for the protection of children’s rights. As part of this commitment, the organization presented a draft of its new Strategic Plan, 2026–2029 to the Board for consideration.
Built on lessons learned and data, the new Plan aims to strike a balance between the level of ambition UNICEF needs to meet the escalating needs of children and the reality of the global financial landscape.
Mr. Omar Abdi, Deputy Executive Director, Programmes, said “in the new Plan, UNICEF will undertake three strategic shifts. First, the organization will sharpen its focus through the prioritization of five impact results. Second, a new orientation towards scale and impact marks a transition from an emphasis on delivering project outputs to child outcomes and impact at scale. Third, UNICEF will aim at differentiating its programmatic offer and strategies for acceleration across different contexts.”
Mr. Abdi went on to describe the Plan’s emphasis on national ownership, inclusive engagement and measurable results, and its elevation of the importance of private and public partnerships to leverage resources for children.
Delegations commended UNICEF for the Plan’s transparent and inclusive consultation process, human rights-based approach, and streamlined and context-sensitive approach.
In their general statements at the start of the session, several delegations commented on the draft Strategic Plan, sharing their encouragement and recommendations on how UNICEF could continue to operate. This included calls for clear priority-setting in the context of increasingly scarce resources and continued investment in robust risk management systems; encouragement for UNICEF to make full use of its dual mandate to strengthen integrated programming across the humanitarian-development-peace nexus; to enhance strategic partnerships and regularly engage with a broad range of development partners; to diversify funding sources and to take effective and innovative financing measures; to protect and preserve country programmes; and to participate constructively in the UN80 initiative, keeping children’s rights, development and protection and the centre.
“The principles of child rights, of gender equality and inclusion must be non-negotiable pillars of the new Strategic Plan,” said H.E. Mr. Thomas Peter Zahneisen, Deputy Permanent Representative of Germany and Vice-President of the UNICEF Executive Board, while delivering a statement on behalf of the UNICEF Bureau. These views were echoed by several additional delegations.
Among several additional ‘asks’ and recommendations from delegations who provided statements after the presentation of the draft Plan were: requests for clearer references to sexual and reproductive health and rights; a clear statement of intent on focusing resources on the most vulnerable children; more precision in describing humanitarian work; an encouragement to maintain the focus on children with disabilities; an avoidance of weakening of language related to protection from sexual exploitation and abuse; the importance of protecting independent oversight and accountability mechanisms; further detail and updates on how UNICEF will reposition itself under the UN80 framework; and a recommendation to build flexibility into the forward years of the Strategic Plan.
Responding to comments made, Ms. Ganesh said that UNICEF was encouraged by the Board’s support to the fact that the Plan is anchored in the rights framework, the Convention on the Rights of the Child and related important human rights frameworks. She also expressed gratitude to all the countries that had worked over the past months to help to frame the Plan, which she said, “will be our common narrative going forward, but…contextualized at the country level.”
Key decisions
The Board adopted 11 decisions: on annual reports – of the Executive Director, on ethics, risk, audit and investigations, evaluation, humanitarian action, and private fundraising and partnerships; updates on protection from sexual exploitation and abuse, organizational culture and the repositioning of the UN development system; and on the extensions of ongoing country programmes.
In her closing remarks, Executive Director Russell thanked Board members for their continued partnership and their support for the organization and for its staff.
“Your engagement means even more in this pivotal year as we develop UNICEF's new four-year Strategic Plan and as we navigate these historic financial challenges. With your support, we are determined to continue delivering on our mandate, upholding normative standards and championing the most vulnerable, wherever they may be”, she said.
Ambassador Hikmat commended the Board and UNICEF staff for the fruitful exchanges and deliberations during the session. “Here, this week, we came together not to observe challenges from a distance but to confront them with a purpose”, he said. “This Board is more than a governing body. It is a platform for global solidarity, a reminder that in a fragmented world we can still act together, united by the simple truth that children must come first.”
“Let us leave this room with that conviction. Let us carry forward the decisions we made, the ideas we exchanged and the values we reaffirmed,” he concluded.
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The Executive Board will meet for its next formal meeting, the second regular session of 2025, from 2 to 5 September.
