Welcome to this year's second quarterly briefing on the Secretariat’s ongoing work to prevent and respond to sexual misconduct.
We are now halfway through the final year of our three-year strategy for zero tolerance for sexual misconduct by the WHO workforce.
At this mid-year mark, 73% of planned activities for 2025 are either completed or ongoing.
Every month, WHO continues to share with Member States updated information on allegations of all forms of abuse, including sexual misconduct, and the disciplinary actions taken.
So far this year, 11 allegations of sexual exploitation or abuse have been reported, 92 cases of sexual harassment, and 66 cases of abusive conduct.
The increased number of reports show that a positive "speak-up" culture has emerged across the Organization since our work in this area intensified in 2021.
For context, allegations against members of the WHO workforce account for 8% of all allegations across the UN system since 2017.
However, the numbers do not tell the whole story. We estimate that many concerns still go unreported.
This is consistent with recent surveys showing that most UN and NGO staff who know of an allegation of sexual exploitation or abuse do not report it, and they report sexual harassment even less.
This is likely due to either fear of retaliation or inaction.
Today, I will update you on three areas in which we have made progress, and the challenges that remain.
The first is an issue that affects Member States directly.
There has been increasing realization, championed by WHO, that you, Member States, play a crucial role in safeguarding against sexual misconduct.
As you are aware, Member States are often WHO’s biggest implementing partner. Building capacity among them is key to preventing sexual misconduct.
At its meeting in January, the Programme Budget and Administration Committee proposed that the Secretariat should encourage and support Member States to use the voluntary PRSEAH accountability framework to protect populations from sexual misconduct during joint operations.
I am happy to report that so far, ten Ministries of Health are reporting that they have initiated work in this area.
Further, several countries have sought the Secretariat’s support for establishing or strengthening their national policies, training and incident management.
For instance, we have received recent requests from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ecuador and the Ministry of Health of Sri Lanka, which wants to integrate PRSEAH into its 10-year national health strategy.
In October, the WHO African Region is convening a meeting in South Africa to discuss how to implement Member State accountability for sexual misconduct.
I encourage Member States to work through our country offices, which can draw on support from our regional and HQ expertise. The Secretariat is developing relevant guidance and tools.
The second area in which we have made progress is in leadership accountability.
Every year, UN agency heads are required to submit an annual management letter to the Secretary General on measures taken to address sexual exploitation and abuse.
In the same manner, starting from last year, I now require annual management letters from each of WHO’s Heads of Country Office.
So far, nearly 90% have submitted their annual letter.
From this year, I am going to require the same from the Regional Directors, so that the entire WHO leadership is accountable for preventing sexual misconduct.
In their management letters, in addition to identifying risks and reporting on actions they have taken, our heads of WHO Country Offices asked for support in five areas:
Capacity building for implementing partners;
Community awareness and engagement;
Strengthening complaint and reporting mechanisms;
Financial and human resources;
And practical guidance and tools.
In addition to these, the WRs are concerned about victim and survivor services at country level, and sexual misconduct risks during emergency and field deployments.
These concerns can only be addressed collectively by the entire UN at country level.
As you know, I have previously asked the Secretary-General’s Coordinator on sexual misconduct to address this, and WHO will participate and contribute technically and financially.
The third area in which we have made progress is on institutional capacity building.
We have launched a capacity-building programme, especially in the area of investigations, to teach a trauma-informed approach, in order to better support victims and survivors.
Additionally, our Victim and Survivor Support Officer convened a survivor reference group in which ideas are generated by survivors themselves to improve our end-to-end incident management system.
We have also made progress reducing risks posed by our implementing partners in 15 priority countries.
91% have been assessed for their safeguarding capacities, and 71% of them are at full capacity for eight core standards.
We are also raising the standards for our vendors with high-value contracts, requiring them to meet minimum safeguarding capacities as part of their selection process.
And in 2024, 144 of WHO’s 155 country offices completed the annual WHO risk assessment for sexual misconduct.
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While we have made significant progress, many risks persist.
The financial crisis affecting the development and humanitarian sectors means that vulnerability and exposure to sexual misconduct will inevitably increase, while our capacity to prevent and respond effectively will be reduced.
Many women-led NGOs who are frontline workers for awareness raising and victim support have been hit by the financial crisis and are no longer in existence or not able to operate.
That is why, in our prioritization and alignment process, I continue to prioritize the prevention of, and response to, sexual misconduct.
I will continue to oversee the work directly, and the PRS team will remain in my office.
Today you will hear from two external independent service providers who ran review and stocktaking exercises on our work. These findings will feed into our next strategy on sexual misconduct.
Dr Gaya Gamhewage will now take us through those presentations.
I thank you again for your continuing engagement, questions, suggestions and guidance.