UNFPA: Bevölkerungsfonds der Vereinten Nationen – Core Contribution

UNFPA’s main areas of work include sexual and reproductive health and rights, maternal mortality, youth, gender equality and women’s empowerment, and population dynamics (growth rates, age structure, fertility, mortality and migration). It is the lead United Nations organisation for the follow-up and implementation of the Programme of Action (PoA) adopted at the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) in Cairo in 1994; it has also been heavily engaged in its operational review process “ICPD Beyond 2014”. UNFPA’s work is also strongly guided by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), in particular Goal number 5 “Improve maternal health”.

• UNFPA’s work contributes to the Swiss strategic priorities as outlined in the Federal Council’s Bill for International Cooperation 2013-2016 where UNFPA is included as one of the SDC’s priority organisations.
• UNFPA’s work derives directly from the Programme of Action of the ICPD, to which Switzerland committed in 1994.
• UNFPA is an important partner of Switzerland in the achievement of the MDGs as well as in the formulation of a framework for sustainable development Post-2015.

Starting from the Mid Term review of UNFPA’s 2008-2013 Strategic Plan, the strong commitment towards increasing its focus and impact have led UNFPA successfully through a series of strategic and organizational changes that have already started to deliver results. These changes also affected the development of the new Strategic Plan 2014-2017 for which the results framework was improved. Recent changes also include the establishment of an indedependent evaluation office that offers high potential for the strengthening of the evaluation function within the organization.

In regards to development results, in 2012 UNFPA had modest achievements in terms of outcomes with 59% of all outcome indicators meeting targets. However there was a stronger performance on the output level with 90% of output targets achieved. This translates to good progress achieved in terms of sexual and reproductive health and rights and gender equality. To illustrate this, UNFPA supported 119 countries to implement international agreements and national legislation for gender equality and reproductive health rights, surpassing the target by 4 countries. However, access to sexual and reproductive health services, particularly for the most marginalized groups, remains an issue that has not yet been fully adressed.

Switzerland contributed to UNFPA’s work in fighting harmful practices such as female genital mutilation and gender-based violence. It also contributed to UNFPA’s effort to ensure the SRHR of women and girls, particularly in fragile contexts and humanitarian settings.

Switzerland has also intensified its support to and dialogue with UNFPA, particularly in the areas of evaluation, results-based management and UN coordination. Switzerland engaged systematically with UNFPA management and board members throughout the process of elaborating the new Strategic Plan and the accompanying Integrated Results Framework as well as UNFPA’s Global and Regional Interventions Strategy to ensure that the organization strengthens its focus on delivering results, in particular at the country level.

Furthermore, Switzerland has actively collaborated with UNFPA in advocacy to raise awareness of the results from the “ICPD Beyond 2014” review process and on the importance of ICPD issues for the Post-2015 Development Agenda.

Within it’s Strategic Plan 2014-2017, UNFPA has a new overall impact goal focused on: “achieving universal access to sexual and reproductive health, realizing reproductive rights, and reducing maternal mortality to accelerate progress on the ICPD agenda, to improve the lives of adolescents and youth, and women, enabled by population dynamics, human rights, and gender equality”. For the next cycle, UNFPA will concentrate on achieving 15 outputs and four outcomes. Switzerland’s interactions with UNFPA are guided by the following development results areas:

1. Increased availability and use of integrated sexual and reproductive health services (including family planning, maternal health and HIV) that are gender responsive and meet human rights standards for quality care and equity in access.
2. Increased priority on adolescents, especially on very young adolescent girls, in national development policies and programmes, particularly increased availability of comprehensive sexuality education and sexual and reproductive health.
3. Advanced gender equality, women’s and girls’ empowerment, and reproductive rights, including for the most marginalized women, adolescents and youth.

Strengthened national policies and international development agendas through integration of evidence-based analysis on population dynamics and their links to sustainable development, sexual and reproductive health and reproductive rights, HIV and gender equality.

Switzerland continues to engage in a political dialogue with UNFPA, through active participation on the Executive Board and through ongoing exchange with UNFPA management.

• Switzerland reaffirms commitment to the Programme of Action of the ICPD in its entirety but will focus on strengthening the SRHR of adolescents and youth, in particular young adolescent girls during the next phase of partnership with UNFPA.
• Switzerland contributes to strengthen the culture of results-based management, the professionalization of the evaluation function, and UNFPA’s engagement in the UN reform process and system-wide coherence.
• Switzerland contributes to strengthen UNFPA’s full integration and implementation of the Quadrennial Comprehensive Policy Review (QCPR) recommendations.

The representation of Switzerland as a member state in UNFPA is enhanced through an increased number of Swiss staff.

As one of Switzerland’s priority organizations and in line with the increase foreseen under the Federal Council’s Bill for International Cooperation 2013-2016, the proposed increase of CHF 2 million per year should place Switzerland among the top ten donor countries.

Sweden, Norway, Netherlands, Denmark, Finland, United Kingdom, USA,  Japan, Germany,  Canada

Switzerland is a member of 13 like-minded donors (Utstein). Switzerland promotes and discusses its priorities and positions within this group seeking to build common understanding on relevant issues and coordinating with others in order to make use of synergies.

Phase 24 01.01.2014 - 31.12.2016   (Completed)