nextWhy do CCAs and UNDAF seem to create excessive processes? Why
are most CCAs and UNDAFs of deplorable quality? Two basic assumptions to UN
reform are beginning to prove wrong:
First, it was wrongly assumed that the lack of coordination of otherwise
well-planned and well-executed UN assisted development efforts was responsible
for the lack of impact. We now see that mixing three or more poor programmes
create the hell of poor programme, not a better effort. In almost every
CCA/UNDAF inflicted country the symptoms of weak programming are magnified by
the lens of interagency scrutiny. Hence, recent UNDAF training for UN Country
Teams focused on basic programming skills. The stuff we teach our JPOs.
We, including other agencies, must improve our programming practices. This may
sound a sweeping statement, and does not do justice to the very good work seen
in places. But if we want to see better results of overall UN assistance, we
need to programme better, individually and collectively. This is not an UNDAF
issue. It is an issue of how to analyze a problem, how to make strategic
choices, how to programme for results, how to work with partners, and how to
increase the logic and coherence of our efforts. Without a critical mass of good
programming skills within a UN Country Team, an UNDAF is likely to be of
doubtful quality.
Second, it was wrongly assumed that country offices of UN agencies knew exactly
what they were doing, and why. In pre-UNDAF days, Country Programme submissions
were thought to be great when they reflected current agency policy. Now, an
office has to explain why, for instance, Immunization Plus is the best of all
possible development interventions that the country needs and the office is able
to support. Programme preparation, or strategizing, was always meant to be an
inclusive exercise, to be done together with whoever was around to make a
contribution to the country’s development. UNDAF doesn’t really add something
new to the process. Except that it asks offices to state why exactly they choose
some specific interventions.
Agencies need to become clearer about their respective roles in a country’s
development process. As long as different agencies identify themselves through
different subsets of the Millennium Development Goals, we are going to work into
different directions. Synergy will only be achieved if we specify our different
(or sometimes similar) roles and agency-specific comparative advantage in
pursuing a jointly agreed common goal.
For UNICEF, this should not be a difficult exercise. We have, among others, a
reputation for getting children on every item of a country’s development agenda,
an operational human rights based approach that focuses on the most vulnerable
and excluded, experience with community based and participatory approaches, and
a superb moral platform backed by international agreements and conventions, not
least the Millennium Declaration.
The point is that these agency specific roles are not spelled out globally.
Maybe we need a sort of global UNDAF – on 16 pages and produced within 8 weeks.
It would clarify what exactly countries can expect from different agencies, not
just by sector or development indicator that needs improvement, but by the type
of support that agencies are able to provide. This would help agencies,
globally, to focus on building their comparative strengths, and at the country
level, to better identify their complementarity and mutually supporting roles.
(7 March 2003)
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