UNFPA Strategic Plan 2022 - 2025

Publication date: 2022

UNFPA Strategic Plan 2022-2025 Our new Strategic Plan 2022-2025 is a bold, ambitious plan of action that brings important changes to UNFPA’s effort to reach millions of the world’s most vulnerable people, especially women, adolescents and youth. We remain firmly committed to achieving the three transformative results by 2030 – ending the unmet need for family planning, ending preventable maternal deaths and ending gender-based violence and harmful practices. In order to do this, we need to accelerate progress and transform how we do business. Global megatrends have changed the conditions under which we operate and are transforming the way we work. The COVID-19 pandemic has threatened the world’s most disadvantaged women and young people – people living in poverty or with disabilities, people of African descent or from indigenous Acceleration Transformation Reaching the furthest behind Foreword communities, and LGBTQI+ people. Climate change, rising inequalities and technological changes all demand that we speed up our efforts, do things differently and mobilize new partners. The strategic plan is a call to action. It calls for tackling harmful gender norms and inequalities, investing in young people and protecting the bodily autonomy of women and girls. It prioritizes early action and preparedness in our continuing work in humanitarian settings, where half of all maternal deaths occur. As a human rights organization, we will continue to emphasize our normative role and the promotion of comprehensive sexual and reproductive health and rights, and advocate to dismantle inequalities through both our own work and the work of UNFPA-supported women and youth-led organizations that are organizing for change. And we will do more to shift the focus from funding the ICPD Programme of Action agenda to financing it. We have heard from programme countries that we have to tailor our programmatic and technical assistance to better respond to local contexts, something our new business model will be supporting. While doing so, we will work closely with our United Nations partners and other organizations on the ground to ensure coherent and coordinated interventions. As we have grown from strength to strength in recent years, we take pride in the work we do each day to empower women and young people – in particular adolescent girls – often under challenging circumstances. Our results speak for themselves. As we near the 2030 goal line, there are increasing expectations on us from all of our partners to continue to deliver results where it matters most. Against this backdrop, the strategic plan charts a clear way forward. It belongs to all of us, and I invite you to rally around our shared goals and critical programming as we implement this transformative agenda for the benefit of women and girls around the world, especially those furthest behind. There is no time to lose. Dr. Natalia Kanem Executive Director UNFPA 32 Strategic Plan 2022-2025 The world now Shifts in climate, demography, inequality and technology are reshaping the world as never before. Maternal deaths remain high, young people lack access to sexuality education, and 200 million people in developing regions who want to prevent pregnancy are not using modern contraceptives. Almost 1 in 3 women have been subjected to physical or sexual violence. Others experience infertility, unsafe abortion and lack of comprehensive post-abortion care, female genital mutilation, obstetric fistula, HIV and AIDS, child marriage and more. Raging conflicts across the globe – from the famine, floods, fires and extreme heat of climate change to the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic – continue to disrupt, threaten and even reverse hard won development gains. The strategic plan The Strategic Plan 2022–2025 reflects this changing world, offering a vision of how UNFPA will lead the way forward in addressing equality, equity and non-discrimination, empowerment of women and girls, and the pursuit of the realization of sexual and reproductive health and rights. Emerging trends inform the plan, new and expanded priorities add to longstanding commitments, and “how we work” is changing. Yet every step continues to be guided by the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) Programme of Action and the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals. We have already made good progress, but there are many challenges ahead and we are ready to do what it takes to reach the mountaintop. 4 What makes this plan different? Key strategic shifts will transform the way we work. We will integrate the effect of megatrends from ageing to climate change to people on the move into programming, scale-up high-quality services, expand humanitarian response capacity and address mental health and psychosocial issues. We will tackle gender norms that are holding back women and girls, look even more closely at local contexts, and reinvigorate and expand partnerships new and old. Internally, we will ensure UNFPA has the right people in the right place with the right skills to lead our global transformative agenda. Countries will take the lead to determine which modes of engagement will have the most impact in their context, for a more decentralized determination of what works: advocacy and policy dialogue and support; knowledge management; capacity development; service delivery; and coordination, partnership and South- South and triangular cooperation. Three interconnected outcomes of the Strategic Plan 2022-2025 Outcome 1 By 2025, the reduction in the unmet need for family planning has accelerated Outcome 2 By 2025, the reduction of preventable maternal deaths has accelerated Outcome 3 By 2025, the reduction in gender-based violence and harmful practices has accelerated 7Strategic Plan 2022-2025 Sustainable Development Goals The strategic plan contributes to accelerating the achievement of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. It is aligned with and contributes to all 17 Sustainable Development Goals, in particular Goals 3, 5, 10, 16 and 17, which work together to bring us closer to the achievement of Goal 1 – to end poverty in all its forms everywhere. Goal 3 Ensure healthy lives and promote well- being for all at all ages Goal 5 Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls Goal 10 Reduce inequality within and among countries Goal 13 Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts Goal 16 Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels Goal 17 Strengthen the means of implementation and revitalize the Global Partnership for Sustainable Development 9Strategic Plan 2022-2025 How are we going to get there? The previous strategic plan, 2018– 2021, set the course towards the achievement of the three transformative results. The new strategic plan continues that mission, utilizing new strategies that bring benefits to everyone we serve. WHAT we do remains unchanged: keeping the promise of the ICPD Programme of Action. But HOW we do it is changing. To get us to where we need to go, the strategic plan has identified six outputs, supported by six accelerators. Six interconnected outputs are the roads we need to travel and the areas we need to invest in now: 1 Policy and accountability 2 Quality of care and services 3 Gender and social norms 4 Population change and data 5 Humanitarian action 6 Adolescents and youth 11Strategic Plan 2022-2025 1 5 6 2 3 4 Six accelerators will help us to achieve the outputs: 1 Human rights-based and gender-transformative approaches Innovation and digitalization 3 Partnerships, South-South and triangular cooperation, and financing 4 Data and evidence 5 Leaving no one behind and reaching the furthest behind first 6 Resilience and adaptation, and complementarity among development, humanitarian and peace-responsive efforts 2 13Strategic Plan 2022-2025 Organizational effectiveness We need to go further, faster than ever before. UNFPA is reinvigorating, reimagining and transforming how we work so that we can lead the way forward, guided by the blueprint of the strategic plan. Improved programming for results Quality assurance and accountability. Social and environmental standards. Volunteerism. Results-based management. Knowledge management. Optimized management of resources Deploy talent efficiently and effectively. Integrate resource planning and budgeting. Operational agility with accountability for resources and results. Tracking progress Tracking and assessing the progress made towards achieving the three transformative results, as well as learning from successes and failures in the process, will be critical. The UNFPA strategic plan monitoring and evaluation priorities will include: • Monitoring indicators to measure progress and acceleration towards the three transformative results • Supporting joint monitoring and evaluation with other United Nations frameworks and stakeholders • Monitoring potential programmatic and operational risks faced by the strategic plan, including financing and resource gaps • Emphasizing real-time monitoring to provide data for decision-making and agile programming • Reporting annually on progress and continuing to harmonize tools and methodologies for assessments and reporting for shared results, especially the Sustainable Development Goals • Conducting an evaluation of the strategic plan, and relying on a variety of thematic, country, internal and annual reports to conduct a midterm review Expanded partnerships for impact Expand multi-stakeholder partnerships and innovative collaborations for impact. Leverage and unlock the resources required. Develop new collaborations with traditional and non-traditional partners, including the general public. 1514 Strategic Plan 2022-2025 Where are we working? Everyone, everywhere benefits when women are empowered for better health and educational, economic and civic opportunities. UNFPA works in over 150 countries and territories that are home to the vast majority of the world’s people. The new country classification system Under the new strategic plan, UNFPA will prioritize support to countries farthest from the three transformative results. The 119 programme countries are classified into three tiers based on • need for family planning satisfied with modern methods • maternal mortality ratio • gender inequality index Tier I These 56 countries strive to meet all three of the indicator thresholds and include countries that are least developed, landlocked or in humanitarian and post-humanitarian settings. Tier II Only one of the three indicator thresholds has been met by these 31 programme countries regarding family planning, maternal health or gender equality. Tier III At least two of the three indicator thresholds have been met by these 32 programme countries. More tailored interventions to advance ICPD goals will accelerate progress. UNFPA will also focus on the 36 small island developing states under the two multi-country programmes: 14 in the Pacific and 22 in the Caribbean. 17Strategic Plan 2022-2025 Partnerships From an individual voice to collaborations with other UN agencies, we are working together with diverse partners towards the realization of the three transformative results. UNFPA is reinvigorating and expanding partnerships with the private sector, civil society organizations, international financial institutions, academia and media, as well as those forged through South-South and triangular cooperation. How we can work together: • Grassroots, youth-led and women-led civil society organizations can engage in policy dialogues, advocate for increased financing for the ICPD agenda and work side-by-side with UNFPA to reach those furthest behind. • Parliamentarians can mobilize political will, funding and accountability – enacting laws and fostering understanding. • Partners in academia can provide research, data and analysis that is essential for evidence-based decision making, innovation and advocacy. • Private sector partners can mobilize tools and knowledge, unlock financial resources and promote the health and well-being of women in the workplace – including the garment industry. • Sports organizations can use sport as a platform for gender equality and inclusion, creating campaigns and events that not only raise awareness but increase access to sexual and reproductive health information and services. The UNFPA Strategic Plan 2022-2025 calls upon the global community to act, work together and secure the investment needed for scaling up innovative and impactful interventions to accelerate the ICPD Programme of Action and achieve the three transformative results. Read the full plan at https://www.unfpa.org/StrategicPlan 19Strategic Plan 2022-2025 Delivering a world where every pregnancy is wanted, every childbirth is safe and every young person’s potential is fulfilled United Nations Population Fund 605 Third Avenue New York, NY 10158 +1 212 297 5000 www.unfpa.org January 2022 http://www.unfpa.org

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