DFID’s work through the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF)

Over the period 2007-11, the UK government was the second largest donor to UNICEF, contributing £690 million. The review looks at the impact and effectiveness of DFID’s partnership with UNICEF.

Score: Green/Amber
  1. Status: Completed
  2. Published: 22 March 2013
  3. Type: Other
  4. Subject: Multilateral spend
  5. Assessment: Green/Amber
  6. Location: Democratic Republic of Congo, Ghana, Sierra Leone
  7. Lead commissioner: Mark Foster

Summary

Over the period 2007-11, the UK government contributed £690 million to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF). The Department for International Development’s (DFID) view, set out in the Multilateral Aid Review (MAR), is that UNICEF has a critical role in delivering DFID and government development and humanitarian priorities. In 2011, UNICEF spent $3.8 billion and worked in more than 150 countries. After the results of the MAR were published in 2011, DFID chose to double its core funding to UNICEF.

This review assesses the impact and effectiveness of DFID’s partnership with UNICEF. In particular, it looks at UNICEF’s role as a DFID delivery partner in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Ghana and Sierra Leone, implementing programmes funded in part by DFID. We evaluate the effectiveness of DFID’s management of its relationship with UNICEF.

As a result of our findings this review has been marked green-amber and we made three recommendations.

Timeline

Review publication

Published 22 March 2013

Government response

Published 12 April 2013

ICAI follow-up

Published 12 June 2014