As prepared for delivery

Thank you, Chair.

Mr. President, Associate Administrator, Members of the Executive Board, Excellencies.

Let me start with an existential question: What does this new Strategic Framework enable UNCDF actually do, on the ground, that others in the development finance architecture will find challenging?

Here are 3 examples:

First, in early-stage markets, where risks are high, we unlock domestic capital, and change the risk profile.

In Afghanistan, working with UNDP and the Resident Coordinator, UNCDF provided a $1 million portfolio guarantee that unlocked more than $30 million in local-currency lending to small businesses, many led by women.

Default risk was assumed to exceed 90 percent.

Actual defaults came in below 2 percent.

That difference changed the pricing of risk and determined whether larger institutions would enter. We showed that we can unlock domestic finance for what aid previously paid for.

Second, we take on risk first, so International Financial Institutions can be more confident to scale financing.

In Palestine, with the support from the Kingdom of the Netherlands and other donors, and in collaboration with UNDP, UNCDF is finalizing a guarantee that enables MDBs and DFIs to inject emergency liquidity into the domestic financial sector for lending to small businesses, to support recovery and pave the way for larger capital flows.

Third, we crowd in private capital that would otherwise stay out.

In Zimbabwe, together with the Joint SDG Fund, UN Women, UNESCO and UNDP, UNCDF took a first-loss position in the country’s first dedicated renewable energy investment vehicle. The structure is designed to catalyse more than six times the initial capital from pension funds, private investors, and commercial banks.

Excellencies, what these examples speak to is a moment of divergence.

Capital exists.

Yet in Least Developed Countries and fragile settings, without deliberate financial engineering, capital still does not reach the last mile.

That gap is structural.

The global financial system is designed to avoid early-stage risk.

But early-stage risk is precisely where development impact is highest.

This is the frontier on which development will be won or lost.

The evidence is clear.

Of the $1.4 trillion deployed by multilateral development banks over the past decade, less than six percent reached LDCs. Only 4% of global assets under management (the huge volume of private capital that we all refer to), get to developing countries, and fraction of a fraction of a fraction of that gets to LDCs.

Left to its own logic, finance waits.

UNCDF exists because the world cannot afford to wait.

There is a reason UNCDF was created sixty years ago, and a reason its mandate was reaffirmed in Seville last year.

UNCDF’s unique position as a non-credit-rated UN fund, able to deploy investment grants, guarantees, loans at 0% or low interest, operating in direct support of UN Country Teams and in close partnership with UNDP, gives it a distinctive financial de-risking role that opens the pathway for larger streams of capital to flow.

We enter early, where markets are thin and uncertainty is real.

We use grant funding as capital not to procure things or hire people, but to absorb risk, and make new markets investable. What reflows back, we redeploy, giving Member States value add in multiples. This is unique in the UN system. Especially in today’s context, it is the only way of stretching the dollar even further.

That operating model is what the Strategic Framework 2026–2029 is designed to scale: A fundamentally different use of official development assistance.

Our objective, by focusing on finance for small businesses, sub-national finance and digital finance, is to effect systems change in early-stage markets: building markets and domestic financial architectures that attract capital and reduce long-term dependence on aid. Countries, including LDCs, are calling for investment. We must answer that call with pragmatism, and the right type of tools.

Excellencies,

As UNCDF turns 60 later this year, the mandate you entrusted to us has never been more relevant. We are a necessary ingredient in 2026 to augment the UN offer and the overall international financial architecture.

This Strategic Framework is our commitment.

But, we need your help. Catalytic finance in high-risk markets only works if UNCDF is capitalized.

We have a focused and reformed operating platform that UN80 is calling for, a new business model, and a unique identity as a Fund dedicated to helping those farthest behind.

What we need now is the partnership to bring this capability to scale.

Let us work together to get it done.

Thank you, Chair.