Remarks by UN Women Executive Director Sima Bahous at the Executive Board Annual Session, at the UN Headquarters, on 23 June 2026.
[As delivered.]
Your Excellency, Ambassador Godfrey Kwoba, Deputy Permanent Representative of Uganda and President of the UN Women Executive Board, Excellencies, distinguished Members of the Executive Board, good morning to you all.
Thank you, Mr. President, and your team, for your leadership alongside our Vice Presidents and their teams: Ambassador Suela Janina of Albania, Ambassador Sophie de Smedt of Belgium and Ambassador Aida Kasymalieva of Kyrgyzstan. My thanks also to Ambassador Alejandra Hernandez Gonzalez of the Dominican Republic for representing the Latin American and the Caribbean group unofficially in the Bureau.
This august Bureau has steered our Board at a complex time and done so ably and collaboratively. We could not have asked for more. So, thank you. I also acknowledge with appreciation all members and observers of the Executive Board for your engagement in discussions and consultations that have brought us all well-prepared to our session.
And, on the eve of the International Day of Women in Diplomacy, we honour all women who have opened doors, broken barriers, and reshaped diplomacy through their leadership. And all of us here at UN Women would be proud to serve under a Madame Secretary-General, come January.
We fully appreciate, and will discuss together, the complexities of the current moment of the multilateral system. This moment demands that we continue to do better, that we rise to evolving and growing challenges with agility, adaptation, and resolve.
Democratic and human rights norms continue to be contested in places and ways we could not have anticipated just a few years ago. We see this persistent pushback on women’s rights, the continued erosion of civic space, and increased risks for women human rights defenders. We also see structural barriers to women’s political participation, economic empowerment, and leadership remaining deeply entrenched.
The defunding of women’s organizations removes the ground from beneath us. The questioning of the social construction of gender and of the established language of equality, that has long guided resolutions and multilateral debate, strikes at the foundation we have built. Across the world, national women’s machineries are being weakened or dismantled. These are not isolated developments. They reflect a broader challenge to the universality of rights, and to the norms that have underpinned progress over decades.
Nowhere is this regression more keenly felt than in conflict. In Afghanistan, the DRC [Democratic Republic of the Congo], Ethiopia, Gaza, Palestine, Haiti, Lebanon, Myanmar, Sudan, Ukraine, and beyond. And no one feels it more keenly than women and girls, including human rights defenders and women leaders who are under attack everywhere.
Yet only 0.4 per cent of bilateral aid to conflict-affected contexts reaches women-led and feminist organizations. That thin USD 186 million is spread across some 45 or so conflicts, sliced too finely for any genuine impact. Crucial organizations are shuttering life-saving programmes. Some are facing permanent closure. There is no excuse for this failure and the misery it causes and will continue to cause.
We also see regression of a different sort closer to home. Data from the third iteration of the UN System‑Wide Action Plan on Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women shows 42 per cent of UN entities reporting actual or anticipated weakening of their gender architecture in 2025–2026. And in UN Coordination Frameworks, a standalone outcome on gender equality has decreased from 50 per cent in 2022 to a mere 14 per cent today.
Yet this is not the whole story. Even in a difficult environment, Member States continue to demonstrate that multilateralism can deliver for women and girls. Earlier this year, the Commission on the Status of Women adopted Agreed Conclusions that reaffirmed the centrality of women’s and girls’ access to justice. In doing so, Member States demonstrated that even amid significant headwinds, multilateral processes continue to protect and advance global norms and standards for women and girls.
Our shared pursuit of equality has never demanded more courage, more intentionality, never called for us to be more unbending in our determination to pursue the triple mandate the General Assembly afforded us.
And, the evidence from across our collective work is clear. Where legal and policy frameworks are strengthened, where services and funding are accessible, and where women’s participation is supported, outcomes improve — not only for women and girls, but for all of society in terms of peace, resilience, economic prosperity, sustainable development, and recovery capacity.
I am honoured to present at this session my fourth and final report on the implementation of our 2022–2025 Strategic Plan. It lays out results of which we should be proud, reflecting our powerful triple mandate. They are the baseline we strive to exceed under our current Strategic Plan.
Allow me to summarise:
- Over the 2022–2025 Strategic Plan period, UN Women invested nearly USD 2.35 billion across 135 countries in protecting and advancing norms, translating global commitments into programmes on the ground, and leading and supporting the UN system to deliver better for women and girls.
- In 110 countries, home to 3.1 billion women and girls, UN Women helped strengthen legal and policy environments for gender equality, contributing to stronger protections, expanded rights and greater opportunities for women and girls through 394 laws adopted, revised or repealed in line with international standards.
- Across 78 countries, 732 gender-responsive national and local policies, strategies and plans helped advance equal pay, the care economy, efforts to end violence against women, and strengthen resilience to conflict and climate change.
- In 50 countries, reforms supported by UN Women expanded women’s access to decent work, income generation, climate-resilient agriculture and care systems, while 1.6 million women directly accessed services, goods, resources, or information essential to their economic autonomy.
- We also helped make the promise of freedom from violence more real for women and girls. Through support to 180 laws and 213 strategies, policies, and action plans, nearly 1.7 billion women and girls benefited from stronger frameworks to prevent and respond to violence.
- In conflict and crisis, UN Women advanced women’s leadership, participation, and protection across 83 countries.
- Support for the Women, Peace and Security agenda contributed to 59 new National Action Plans, bringing total coverage to 117 countries and territories, while more than 2.5 million women and girls accessed protection services, cash assistance, and livelihood support in humanitarian and refugee response settings.
- Despite significant funding pressures, we lived up to our promise to women’s organisations, with more than USD 285 million channeled to civil society organizations, local women-led organisations and networks, helping sustain women’s leadership and frontline responses in communities and crises.
- Across 128 countries, more than 10,300 organizations strengthened their capacities and leadership, while more than 11,400 mechanisms enabled women’s meaningful and safe participation in decision-making.
Through the United Nations Trust Fund to End Violence against Women and the Women’s Peace and Humanitarian Fund, which UN Women hosts on behalf of the UN system, we continued to expand direct support to women’s rights organizations and advance locally led solutions where they are most needed.
Through these funds, despite scarcer resources, you are helping sustain women’s leadership across the humanitarian-development-peace nexus and ensuring that local women’s organizations remain at the forefront of response and recovery efforts.
These results are not just numbers. They show impact, they show lives changed. They do not just create an immediate effect for the women and girls we serve, but also an enabling environment for gender equality, for women’s rights, for normalising women’s leadership, for changing laws, policies, and norms.
Allow me to share a few examples:
- In Ecuador, women gained stronger protections against violence in politics and greater opportunities to participate equally in public life through electoral reforms.
- In Afghanistan, over 350,000 women and girls accessed life-saving services in one of the world’s most restrictive environments for women’s rights, while 191 women-led organizations strengthened their capacity to support communities and sustain women’s leadership.
- In Palestine, more than 323,000 people, the majority of whom are women and girls, received protection, cash, and livelihood support amid a devastating humanitarian crisis.
- In the Great Lakes region, women’s leadership in peace processes expanded, with women representing up to 40 per cent of the African Union mediation team for Eastern DRC.
- In Egypt, 330,000 women gained financial and digital literacy support, enhancing their economic opportunities and resilience.
- Across the Pacific Islands, more than 50,000 market vendors benefited from safer, more resilient livelihoods.
- In Ukraine, more inclusive humanitarian strategies advanced women’s rights and expanded the role of civil society in humanitarian response and recovery.
- In Viet Nam, a landmark population law strengthened the recognition of reproductive rights and unpaid care work, helping lay the foundation for stronger, gender-responsive care systems.
Our coordination efforts have shown impressive results. UNCT-SWAP [UN Country Team System Wide Action Plan] reporting increased by 105 per cent, from 61 UN country teams in 2021 to 125 in 2025. This growth is helping embed gender equality more consistently in UN country team planning, coordination, financing, and results.
We also continued to engage system-wide through the Gender Equality Acceleration Plan (GEAP), which raises the ambition of collective work on gender equality, seeking to deliver transformative change across the three pillars of peace and security, development and human rights, and supporting UNCTs and RCs [UN Resident Coordinators] in their work to prioritize gender equality as the linchpin for all the UN’s work in country.
My report also describes how we have built a stronger entity, better equipped to deliver for women and girls with the resources you entrust to us. Over the Strategic Plan period, we strengthened our internal governance mechanisms, advanced business transformation, and modernized corporate systems.
We also enhanced oversight, accountability, and transparency, including by further strengthening our Transparency Portal, recognized as a good practice in public accountability for results and resources.
We consistently exceeded corporate targets on follow-up to internal and external audit recommendations, and maintained five consecutive years with no long-outstanding audit recommendations from the UN Board of Auditors.
We embedded enterprise risk management into planning, performance, and oversight cycles while institutionalizing the Quarterly Business Review as a forward-looking, evidence-based performance management tool that connects strategic priorities, risks, and resources.
These reforms have made UN Women even more agile, transparent and results focused. They deliver stronger alignment from country to global level and a clearer line of sight between our strategic objectives, the resources we invest, and the results we deliver.
Our strengthened communications and partnership functions have further enhanced our visibility, stakeholder engagement, and resource mobilization effectiveness, helping sustain the trust and support of partners during a period of increasing financial pressure and change across the multilateral system.
Allow me to remind you that we do all this with the most modest of resources. We have weathered the current, uniquely difficult funding environment for the multilateral system better than most, but we are not unaffected.
Like many, we are asked to do more with less. So once more, I ask you to take back to capitals a call to resource this crucial mandate fully, to advocate for our agenda, and for investment in gender equality and women’s empowerment as the greatest multiplier for the SDGs [Sustainable Development Goals]. An investment in UN Women is your vehicle for their achievement.
We will speak more extensively on UN80 this afternoon, but I will reiterate now our full support for the Secretary-General’s UN80 reform efforts, as the United Nations’ youngest entity, born and raised through the reform process.
We continue to ensure that our three priorities permeate all aspects of the process:
- A stronger gender architecture that delivers for all women and girls.
- Gender mainstreaming in all work packages.
- The inclusion of voices of civil society and women-led organizations and movements.
As you know, we were tasked by the Secretary-General, in partnership with the UNFPA [United Nations Population Fund], to explore the merits of a merger between our two entities. The assessment concluded that there is merit in a merger, which could reduce fragmentation, strengthen institutional architecture, and improve coherence and ultimate impact for women and girls. Safeguarding and protecting our critical two mandates must be guaranteed.
You have requested more information and analysis, including around the safeguarding of mandates, of course, and financial implications.
We are also working with UNFPA, as requested by you, our Board, on non-structural alternatives to a merger, to be shared with you this coming Friday. Both entities are focused on seizing every opportunity to work better in the service of all women and girls, everywhere. To deliver a UN system with a strong gender architecture at its heart, one that can withstand pushback and advance the rights and empowerment of all women and girls.
Before I conclude, I am pleased to share with you two pieces of UN Women management news. I welcome Mr. Kambou Fofana of Côte d’Ivoire, who has joined UN Women in May 2026 as the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) and Director of the Division of Finance and Administration (DFA). My thanks to Ms. Johanna Clark for having so ably served as Officer in Charge (OIC) for the division while recruitment was ongoing. I know Kambou will be looking forward to engaging with all of you.
Second, I am sure you have seen that our valued Executive Board Secretary, Jean-Luc Bories, is still here. I have asked him to usher us through the September board as our recruitment for his successor is being finalized. We aim to have his successor with us also in September to ensure a smooth handover. My thanks to Jean-Luc, again, for putting his well-deserved retirement on hold for us.
This is no doubt a daunting moment of disruption and change, division and crisis, but it is also one of hope. Our vision is clear, our movement strong, our resolve undeterred. Together, we have built in UN Women an institution that can rise to a moment such as this one.
And so, we rise together with you, our strong partner, our Executive Board. I thank you for standing so resolutely beside us. Much will be asked of us over the coming year. I do not doubt that together we will deliver for All Women and Girls.
I thank you.
