Multilateral Aid Review summary - United Nations Chidren's Fund (UNICEF)

UNICEF focuses on young child survival and development, basic education and gender equality, HIV/AIDS and children, child protection and policy advocacy and partnerships for children’s rights. UNICEF also has a critical role in humanitarian emergencies.

	comment
Contribution to UK development objectives	Strong
	+	UNICEF has a strong poverty focus and plays a critical role in delivering the MDGs, especially MDGs 3, 4, 5 and 6. It works in all of the countries the UK considers fragile.
	+	It has improved delivery at country level and demonstrates results on the ground.
	_	It struggles to show aggregate results at an organisational level.
	_	Its response in acute emergency situations, where it has a critical role, is a concern.
	+	UNICEF does demonstrate delivery in fragile situations.
	+	Good progress on gender, including its significant advocacy role for girls’ education and promoting sex-disaggregated data.
	_	It does not have a climate specific policy and we found no evidence that UNICEF measures climate or environment impact.
Organisational strengths	Satisfactory
	+	Taking positive steps to improve cost control, and has reduced its administration to programme cost ratio.
	+	It works well with partner governments and other development partners, and has a strong emphasis on building the capacity of local partners.
	_	Inconsistent approach to collaborating with other UN agencies and also working with civil society in humanitarian situations.
	_	Has an organisational-level results framework but this is weak at output level.
	_	There are concerns about its ability to deploy the right staff at the right time to humanitarian emergencies.
	+	It has clear criteria for allocating core resources and good processes in place for audit, risk and accountability.
	_	There is concern over its level of cash balances and it lacks a portfolio quality system to manage project performance.
	+	UNICEF has a financial disclosure policy.
	_	UNICEF does not have a transparency policy and full information on all projects is not disclosed.
Capacity for positive change	Uncertain
	+	There is public commitment to reform at the top.
	_	Given past performance it is too early to predict whether this commitment will lead to substantive change.