EU commits 3 billion Euro to Unicef (unprecedented)

The European Commission also recently announced that it would commit an unprecedented €3.5 billion ($4.6 billion) towards reducing

malnutrition between 2014 and 2020; UNICEF will be one of the implementing partners. And as part of their strategic collaboration, the EU, with UNICEF, recently developed the Child Rights Toolkit:

UNICEF Executive Board Special Focus Session

Partners for change and development:

the growing partnership between the European Union and UNICEF

Guest speaker: Mr Andris Piebalgs, European Commissioner for Development

4 February 2014 – 10:30am to 12pm

A growing partnership for children

Over the past decades, the European Union (EU), which contributes some 60 per cent of the world’s

official development assistance, has progressively expanded its emphasis on protecting children’s

rights. The EU has developed a coherent policy framework in support of the Convention on the

Rights of the Child, with UNICEF an increasingly important partner across a range of development

and humanitarian issues.

The growing partnership has also included a high-level policy dialogue aimed at increasing

systematic engagement and development of common EU proposals benefiting children.

In 2013, UNICEF signed contracts with the EU worth €389 million ($515 million) in support of

programmes and emergency operations on nutrition, child protection, water and sanitation,

education, justice for children and health. While cooperation between the EU and UNICEF has been

further strengthened at the country level worldwide, with a focus on the monitoring and analysis of

the situation of children, a longer-term and more strategic relationship has also evolved around the

achievement of the MDGs and poverty eradication as well as food security, disaster risk reduction,

resilience and social protection.

The Special Focus Session will offer the UNICEF Executive Board an opportunity to learn more

about the various forms of the EU-UNICEF partnership. The EU and UNICEF are currently

collaborating in support of birth registration and towards ending violence against children as well as

harmful traditional practices and female genital mutilation. The European Commission also recently

announced that it would commit an unprecedented €3.5 billion ($4.6 billion) towards reducing

malnutrition between 2014 and 2020; UNICEF will be one of the implementing partners. And as part

of their strategic collaboration, the EU, with UNICEF, recently developed the Child Rights Toolkit:

Integrating Child Rights in Development Cooperation.

Board members will be able to learn more on the synergies between the UNICEF Strategic Plan

2014-2017 and the new EU Agenda for Change 2014-2020 promoting inclusive growth, with a focus

on the most vulnerable people. The session will also offer Member States an opportunity to reflect

on the partnership within the context of the post-2015 development agenda and in view of the

upcoming 25th anniversary of the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

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