UNDP wants to be your "disaster management partner" - it fails to explain how - but calls for funding on your behalf (rest assure your money is safe with Helen Clark)

Click here to read this in full @ UNDP: http://www.undp.org/content/undp/en/home/presscenter/speeches/2012/10/13/helen-clark-development-committee/

Helen Clark: Statement to the Development Committee

13 October 2012

Statement by Helen Clark Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme and Chair of the United Nations Development Group
to the Development Committee
Tokyo, October 13, 2012
A Challenging Global Context
Decent work is a key vehicle for achieving development goals and translating economic growth into poverty reduction. It is therefore highly appropriate that the Development Committee is giving specific attention to the importance of job creation during these Annual Meetings.
The global economic slowdown has made employment generation more difficult. The sovereign debt crisis in Europe and the slow recovery in the global economy led to millions of job losses in both developed and developing countries. The austerity plans adopted by many developed countries have exacerbated the deficiency in demand, further depressing the labour market.

U.S. Proposes Climate Fund for Poor Nations

TO READ STORY IN THE-NEW-YORK-TIMES CLICK HERE

By LISA FRIEDMAN of ClimateWire

The United States has proposed a new global fund that would direct billions of dollars to help poor countries prepare for climate disasters and adjust to low-carbon economies.

The fund would likely operate under the World Bank, U.S. Treasury officials said, and would be the main vehicle to deliver emissions reduction and adaptation measures throughout the world.

William Pizer, deputy assistant secretary for environment and energy at the U.S. Treasury Department, explained that the fund would contribute to a spectrum of projects from "building a solar park or creating a financial vehicle to support investments in energy efficiency to creating an insurance mechanism for disasters or crops."

The world's poorest countries also are among the most vulnerable to climate change and will be disproportionately affected by harsher droughts, rising sea levels and fiercer storms, scientists say. The World Bank estimates it will cost $75 billion to $100 billion annually for developing nations to accommodate a world that is warmer by 2 degrees Celsius.

Part of the global climate deal that nations are negotiating in U.N.-sponsored talks in Copenhagen next week involves the promise of substantial funding to help defray those costs.

Just how much money nations will put into the pot remains unknown. That is one of the prickliest questions that negotiators face. Yet while dollar figures -- or absence of them -- grab headlines, analysts say the architecture of the fund is one of the nuts-and-bolts issues fundamental to the climate talks.

"It's certainly a critical part of what needs to be addressed and concluded in the negotiations," said David Waskow, climate change program director at Oxfam America. "At the end of the day ... it's never a just a question about money, but also how the money is governed and spent."

An expected target of $7B to $10B

Countries are expected in Copenhagen to offer between $7 billion and $10 billion for immediate needs in poor countries, with about $1.3 billion expected to come from the United States. The United States has not declared how much it will allocate in the long term. Pizer didn't offer any clues, but said agreeing on a structure for delivering and accounting for the money would be a major step forward.

"I don't think we would be going down this avenue if we didn't see the need for scaling up funding in the future," he said.

Under the proposal the U.S. submitted in October -- which mirrors ideas put forward by Mexico and Australia -- the fund would be governed by a board made up equally of net donors and recipients. All countries except the least-developed nations would be expected to contribute "in accordance with their national circumstances and respective capabilities."

Elliot Diringer, vice president for international strategies at the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, noted that the proposal reflects "a growing view that some of the faster-growing developing countries are in a position to help," as well as industrialized ones. A number of environmental groups oppose the notion and say only rich countries should be expected to foot the bill for climate change.

In a recent analysis, ActionAid USA, Friends of the Earth US and the Sustainable Energy and Economy Network faulted the proposal for failing to force countries to contribute to the fund. The groups also argue that any money for poor countries to address climate change must be in addition to regular foreign assistance, and call for a board governed by a majority of developing countries.

"This is important so as to mirror the composition of parties in the UNFCCC [U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change] and to ensure that those most affected by climate change are in the majority on the governing bodies," the groups wrote.

Narrowly focused on easing burdens of climate change

Treasury officials said they envision a fund that can leverage private-sector investments as well as public funds. They described it as one of several financial arrangements available to help developing countries access funds for different needs.

Currently, the Global Environment Facility acts as the financing arm for the UNFCCC. Established within the World Bank, the coalition of 178 international government institutions manages several pots of money for climate change-related activities. Treasury officials said the new proposal still envisions a role for the GEF. But, they said, it would be more narrowly focused on helping developing nations set efficiency standards, regulate power sectors and take other steps to improve their institutions so clean energy projects can thrive.

"We think that if we're going to significantly scale up financing to deal with climate change, we need a different kind of vehicle," Pizer said. "In particular, we need a vehicle that is more focused on financing investments like the ones that are necessary [to address] climate change." A senior GEF official said the institution is not worried that it will be sidelined, but declined to say whether the agency supports the U.S. plan.

"We welcome all the proposals for this discussion," the official said.

The biggest fight, if there is one, will likely center around the involvement of the World Bank. Treasury officials said they believe the World Bank has the expertise, standards and "internal safeguards" to oversee the financing, though the fund would likely have a governing structure separate from the multilateral bank's normal channels.

Environmental activists have long fought the institution, arguing that it favors wealthy nations and funds too much fossil fuel development. But the U.S. proposal is also getting points from some nonprofit groups for taking a major step toward trying to solve one of the more complicated issues in the climate change negotiations.

"Hopefully, we can at least make some headway in developing the architecture," even if the dollar figure is unsettled, Diringer said.

Added Waskow, "It's really important that they've clearly said they support a new global fund for climate. It's the beginnings of building a bridge to developing countries."

Copyright 2009 E&E Publishing. All Rights Reserved.

UNDP wasting valuable resources dedicated to SUDAN on administrative costs and international consultants

The fight against AIDS in Sudan has had a slow start and only really got going in 2003, when President Omar el Bashir for the first time publicly shook hands with people living with HIV and promised them government support.

Now the Sudan National AIDS Programme (SNAP) provides testing, counselling, treatment and care in several government hospitals. In 2007 SNAP, in conjunction with the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), began prevention of mother-to-child transmission and launched a public awareness campaign that includes radio spots and billboards in Arabic and English.

However, among the challenges facing Africa's largest country is the difficulty of trying to reflect and accommodate region-specific issues in its HIV programming.

High on risk, low on knowledge

In the war-torn western region of Darfur, sexual violence and highly mobile populations mean HIV is a major concern, while the busy transport route between the Red Sea coast and the capital, Khartoum, has led to an influx of truckers and the commercial sex workers that follow them.

In the south, 21 years of war virtually isolated the region, and HIV knowledge remains extremely low, while a crippled health system is not able to effectively handle HIV treatment and care.

A shortage of data across the country and poor access to certain areas due to ongoing insecurity means little is known about the actual magnitude of HIV in Sudan; testing levels are very low and in many areas voluntary counselling and treatment (VCT) centres are few and far between.

A 2002 survey indicated a national infection rate of about 1.6 percent, but was not broken down by state. A new survey to determine HIV prevalence and behaviour change, to be conducted later this year in both north and south Sudan, will provide state-by-state data, but the results are unlikely to be available before 2009.

Adding to the problems national programmes face are 'safeguards' placed on Sudan by the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, which mean the Sudanese government has no direct access to the grants, and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and other UN agencies have to channel money to implementing agencies, wasting valuable resources on administrative costs.

Cultural barriers

Sudan's mainly Islamic north has in the past resisted discussing HIV because of social taboos on discussing sexuality. Even after the public awareness campaign was launched, UNICEF and SNAP have had to limit the distribution of posters promoting condom use to health centres to avoid offending cultural sensibilities. In the largely Christian and animist south, many traditions also forbid discussions about sex, so HIV education is not easy.

Female genital mutilation - another risk factor for HIV - is common across the country, with an estimated 70 percent of Sudanese women undergoing circumcision; in the north it is almost universal. The status of women in Sudanese culture generally gives them little power to negotiate safer sex, which could also contribute to the spread of the pandemic.

Pushing the agenda

Despite these hurdles, the government and its partners are continuing prevention efforts, and providing care for people who have contracted the virus. South Sudan's AIDS commission is organising regular training sessions for groups perceived to be vulnerable, such as the army.

Prevention of mother-to-child transmission programmes are operational in seven hospitals nationally, and there are plans to increase this number in the coming months. Sudan now has 70 VCT centres, with more being set up in more remote areas of the region, and 1,500 people accessing life-prolonging antiretroviral medication at 25 centres across the country.

U.N. Secretary-General Tears Into Top Officials Over Bureaucratic Bog

Tuesday, September 09, 2008
By Joseph Abrams

At a closed-door meeting late last month in Turin, Italy, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon blasted his top officials, accusing them of crippling the world body through a combination of self-interest, petty squabbling and egoism.

"We all know the U.N. is a huge bureaucracy," Ban told the assembled senior officials. "Coming here, 20 months ago, that prospect did not bother me. …

"Then I arrived in New York. There is bureaucracy, I discovered — and then there is the U.N."

Ban's Aug. 29 remarks, which were posted on a U.N. watchdog Web site and confirmed by FOX News to be accurate, came just weeks ahead of the Sept. 16 opening of the U.N. General Assembly, and less than a month before a high-level event convoked by Ban to promote the U.N.'s Millennium Development Goals. That program is intended to dramatically cut world poverty, promote the status of women and reduce illness, especially HIV/AIDS, by 2015.

With all those looming deadlines, Ban told his top officials that he was frustrated by the foot-dragging within the U.N. as it struggles toward the halfway point of its Millennium project, announced in 2000.


"We get too bogged down in internal or bureaucratic technicalities," he told the heads of 27 U.N. organizations, funds and programs known as the U.N. System Chief Executives Board for Coordination.

"We waste incredible amounts of time on largely meaningless matters."

Since taking office nearly two years ago, Ban has publicly taken stands against internal corruption and for greater efficiency within the U.N. bureaucracy.

Ban's method was his own example. He took the unprecedented step in January 2007 of making his personal finances entirely public and urged other top officials to do the same, and of announcing his intention to run system-wide audits to look for violations of U.N. financial rules throughout the organization.

But he has evidently been frustrated and hamstrung by bureaucratic resistance to his initiatives, which have led to less than impressive results and, in some cases, to various parts of the U.N. declaring themselves exempt from central Secretariat control and oversight.

"I tried to lead by example," Ban said, noting his embrace of mobility inside the U.N. and his nearly complete replacement of entrenched workers on his staff. "Nobody followed."

Ban called on the officials to address stagnation, and announced the launch of a program to enforce mobility and regulate worker turnover, which he said was nearly nonexistent.

"We must acknowledge how resistant we are to change," he said. "It cripples us in our most important job: to function as a team."

Ban told his department heads that they "squabble among themselves over posts and budgets and bureaucratic prerogatives as though as they somehow owned them," and he prescribed a series of simple measures to combat what he called self-interest and turf wars that hamper the U.N.'s effectiveness.

If that doesn't lead to a more efficient organization, Ban warned, he may resort to a dramatic staff shakeup. He might "mobilize by fiat and simply direct [U.N. departments] to simply swap 20 percent of their staff."

It remains to be seen whether Ban's cajoling will have any effect — or whether he will go through with the "shock therapy" that he jokingly threatened to impose on his staff.

North Korea restarts nuclear programme

North Korea has made an audacious attempt to push the United States into making more diplomatic concessions by starting to reassemble its Yongbyon nuclear reactor.

Under an agreement struck last year, the Stalinist state agreed to take apart elements of its nuclear programme in return for an end to sanctions and economic aid.

It also hoped to be removed from the United States' list of countries supporting terrorism - which would open it up to greater political and economic benefits.

However, this was contingent on several important conditions that have not yet been met and Washington remains suspicious about North Korea's ultimate intentions.

The country, ruled by Kim Jong-il, has consistently prevaricated when asked to reveal all the details of its nuclear programme.
Although scientists demolished a cooling tower at Yongbyon in June, they have not yet stripped it of vital rods, meaning the facility could potentially be rebuilt within a year.

They have also failed fully to disclose information on their uranium enrichment facilities and history of nuclear proliferation.
However, analysts believe the secretive state may not have given up the goal of developing a nuclear arsenal - and is simply using the process of talks to buy time.

"While its decision to reassemble Yongbyon is probably an attempt to pressure the US into taking it off the terror list, it might have another motive," said Christian Le Miere, a senior Asia analyst at Jane's Country Risk.

"It could also be a sign that the denuclearisation process is just a facade, while it angles for a security guarantee or gains a nuclear deterrent."

North Korea is believed to have already assembled enough plutonium to develop five-10 atomic warheads and there is no agreement yet on whether it should surrender this stockpile.

Ultimately, Pyongyang aims to end a widespread economic malaise that has left the country teetering on the brink of a second devastating famine within a decade.

Recent events have made North Korea's economic situation worse - giving it more reason to try to lift sanctions.

In July, a South Korean tourist was shot dead at the border - severely damaging the tourism industry and forcing Pyongyang to offer easier visas to Chinese tourists instead.

Herfkens gaat 1 dollar verdienen

New York, 28 aug. Minister Verhagen (CDA, Buitenlandse Zaken) komt terug op zijn voornemen de ten onrechte aan Eveline Herfkens verstrekte huurvergoedingen terug te vorderen. Verhagen wil de zaak bij nader inzien achter zich laten door Herfkens één jaar voor de VN te laten werken voor een salaris van 1 dollar (0,68 euro).Nieuws - Verhagen gaat geld terugvorderen van Herfkens

Dat schrijft de minister in een brief aan de Tweede Kamer. Eerder vond de Kamer nog unaniem dat de vergoedingen moesten worden teruggevorderd.

Herfkens (PvdA) is oud-minister van Ontwikkelingssamenwerking. In 2002 werd zij een van Nederlands hoogste diplomaten bij de Verenigde Naties. De Nederlandse staat bood haar toen een huurvergoeding aan. Om de onafhankelijkheid van VN-diplomaten te waarborgen mogen zij geen geld aannemen van hun eigen overheid. Herfkens had dit kunnen weten omdat zij de interne gedragscode waarin dit staat heeft ontvangen en ondertekend.

De juridische dienst van de VN deed vier maanden onderzoek naar de kwestie. „Het lijkt erop”, stelden de onderzoekers in mei, dat Herfkens zich „niet bewust” was van de regels. Ook zou ze „in goed vertrouwen” gehandeld hebben. De Nederlandse staat had de VN-regels voor lidstaten ook overtreden en „had dat kunnen weten”.

In mei vond Verhagen dat de overtreding Herfkens was aan te rekenen. Daarom wilde hij „actie ondernemen” om het geld terug te vorderen, desnoods via de rechter. In de brief van vandaag gaat Verhagen voorbij aan zijn standpunt van mei. Hij verwijst slechts naar een brief uit februari toen het interne VN-onderzoek nog niet afgerond was.

Nu stelt hij dat UNDP de zaak als afgedaan beschouwt en dat hij zelf „nogmaals juridisch advies heeft ingewonnen”. Daaruit trekt hij de conclusie „dat er onvoldoende grondslag is voor het terugvorderen”.

Herfkens weigerde bij herhaling het geld terug te betalen; zij vond dat haar geen blaam trof omdat zij niet zelf om de huursuppletie gevraagd had. Bovendien was ze te druk met haar werk om zich in de VN-regels te verdiepen. Nu schrijft Verhagen dat Herfkens zelf het aanbod heeft gedaan tot een vergelijk te komen en zich daarmee „serieus rekenschap geeft van de politieke dimensie van de discussie”.

Herfkens noch UNDP reageerde vandaag op verzoeken om commentaar. Verhagen zegt te hopen dat deze oplossing „bijdraagt aan het herstel van de reputatieschade die mevrouw Herfkens heeft geleden”.

Kemal Dervis: Business with the Poor is great business

For too long, private businesses have not been seen as key drivers of human development. Yet as the world becomes more interdependent, doing business with the poor can not only boost firms’ competitiveness, but also help in the fight against poverty.

A UNDP report released on Monday offers compelling examples of opportunities that create value for all: both achieving the Millennium Development Goals that have galvanised unprecedented efforts to address the needs of the world’s poorest, and attracting business returns.

Take the case of Celtel, a pan-African telecommunications group. Celtel began offering mobile-banking in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2003, when security in that country was still poor and the banking sector debilitated . Celpay, the service they offer, uses encrypted message technology to allow customers to wire funds across the country.

As a result, Celtel now has over two million subscribers, and has created thousands of jobs and trained local technicians and a sales force throughout the country. The innovative financial service it provides has allowed many formal and informal businesses to grow – businesses that were previously hampered by inadequate banking infrastructure.

While such opportunities for inclusive growth are abundant, so are the challenges. Entering into the markets of the poor is uncharted territory for many companies. It is one where tough obstacles remain, including limited market information, underdeveloped regulatory environments, inadequate physical infrastructure, missing knowledge and skills, and restricted access to financial products and services.

These obstacles often translate into a ‘poverty penalty’ for the poor. People in the slums of Jakarta, Manila and Nairobi can pay up to 5 to 10 times more for water than people in high-income areas of those cities—and more than consumers in London or New York.

This ‘poverty penalty’ is similar in credit, health care and electricity supply. Meeting these challenges in ways that benefit the poor takes creativity, and often requires pooling the skills and experience of private companies, donors, policymakers, philanthropists, public service leaders and nongovernmental organisations. It often involves engaging in a policy dialogue, adapting products and services to the needs of the poor and investing in infrastructure or training.

The report contains 50 specifically commissioned case studies by researchers predominantly from developing countries. These case studies show that by adapting to local conditions, entrepreneurs have successfully identified new opportunities, understood complex contexts, and found innovative solutions.

In Mali, for instance, roughly 64% of the population lives below the national poverty line, and only 10% of the country’s 12 million inhabitants have access to electricity . This number drops to only 2% to 3% in some regions of the country – making economic activity much more challenging. Seeing an opportunity, Électricité de France and its partners set up rural energy services companies .

By the end of 2008, these companies will provide electricity to about 5,000 households in more than 20 villages in the southern cotton region. While they are in partnership with European companies, they are truly independent Malian companies, run by local managers and employees.

Their low-cost electricity, based on solar home systems or small low-voltage village micro-networks supplied by diesel generators, led to new income-generating activities, which have in turn improved the quality of health care and education, increased access to clean water, and reduced CO2 emissions by up to 80% to 90% compared with traditional energy sources.

Work in the area of private sector involvement in less developed markets has so far mainly focused on large multinational firms. Certainly with their influence, global reach and resources, multinationals can effectively scale and replicate successful business models. Yet smaller, local or regional businesses also have much to teach us about strategies that work. They create most of the jobs and wealth required to meet the Millennium Development Goals.

Businesses cannot, however, stand alone. The report suggests that business—accompanied by the skills of governments, donors, civil society and the poor—can build the foundations to grow more inclusive markets.

Governments can unleash the power of business by improving market conditions where poor people live and removing barriers to their economic participation. Notfor-profit organisations, public service providers, microfinance institutions and others already working with the poor can collaborate and pool resources with businesses to help seize opportunities. Donor countries can facilitate dialogues between businesses and governments or other partners.

Socially minded investors and philanthropists can supply the funds to make these time-intensive and uncertain ventures possible. Business models that include the poor require broad support, but they offer gains for all.

With strong and effective political and social institutions , entrepreneurs, firms and households will invest and take risks that promote innovation and create decent jobs. Through the flows of income and creative energy that these jobs generate, people can be lifted out of poverty: their productive capacity can be unleashed, their skills enhanced – providing a solid basis for sustainable development.

The poor are not powerless, nor should they pay a poverty penalty on the products and services that we can so easily take for granted. By recognising them as both potential consumers and drivers of growth, inclusive business models can create greater independence and interdependence – to the benefit of all.

North Korea’s Stacked Deck

By ART BROWN
Published: July 15, 2008

CHINA’S announcement on Saturday that negotiators have agreed on a blueprint for verifying North Korea’s nuclear disarmament is being seen as the latest in a string of hopeful signs. For a while, the drumbeat in Washington has been that the so-called six-party talks are going well and the North Korean nuclear program is well on its way to being contained. If only that were true.

In fact, the Kim Jong-il regime is getting exactly what it wants and using American hunger for diplomatic success to split us from our most important regional allies in the process. If this were high-stakes poker, the North Koreans would be biting their lips to hide their smiles at the cards in their hands.

As it stands now, we have agreed to ship North Korea a million new tons of fuel oil, released Mr. Kim from the handcuffs of our Trading With the Enemy Act, and — within the legally mandated 45 days — will throw in other goodies that come with removing North Korea from the State Department’s state-sponsor-of-terrorism list. This comes on top of the American decision last year to allow the North Koreans to transfer their tainted money out of a bank in Macao.

But the topper is that Kim Jong-il knows he still gets to keep his stockpile of plutonium and even hang on to his existing rack of nuclear weapons (minus the one he tested in October 2006 to set the tone of the game).

Nor are the North Koreans going to be required to fess up to the uranium-enrichment program they picked up from Pakistan earlier in the decade. Nor must they explain their role at the suspected nuclear reactor in the Syrian desert that Israeli jets were reported to have destroyed in 2007.

And while the North Koreans insist they have changed their ways, The Washington Post reported last month that traces of uranium were found on the very 18,000 pages of documents that North Korea submitted to the Washington in an effort to “come clean” on its programs.

Basically, all the North Koreans had to do for these latest concessions was to blow up the cooling tower at the Yongbyon nuclear plant, a publicity stunt for which they billed the United States $2.5 million. Kim Jong-il’s plus-minus sheet looks decidedly better than ours.

The ugly truth is that North Korea no longer needed the creaking plutonium apparatus at Yongbyon — it was a liability to them, being visible to American bombers. Knocking down the cooling tower for the news cameras simply took away Washington’s ability to do the same in the dark of night. Far better to have a clandestine uranium enrichment program tucked away, safely underground.

Not only will our taking North Korea off the state-sponsored terrorist list strengthen the regime and reward those minimal responses, it is a direct blow to our strongest ally in the region, Japan, which believes it had at least 13 (and possibly dozens more) citizens kidnapped by North Korea in the 1970s and ’80s.

Resolving this abductee issue goes to the fundamental integrity of the Japanese government. If the situation were reversed, and Americans were grabbed off a dark Florida beach by a Cuban patrol boat, we would go to war to bring them home.

But America has pledged to protect Japan in return for the Japanese forgoing offensive arms. Taking the Japanese abductees off the negotiating table while leaving North Korea with its existing weapons may cause Tokyo to question the utility of that pledge. North Korea’s missiles can’t hit us, but Japan is well within the kill zone.

No one should imply that North Korea is an easy nut to crack. Smart folks on both sides of the domestic political aisle have struggled with this challenge. North Korea has shown no intention of giving up its nuclear weapons, and we are unfortunately not in a position to either force or entice it to do so. Despite all the spin out of the talks among the six concerned parties — China, Japan, North Korea, Russia, South Korea and the United States — there is no reason to honestly assume North Korea will ever give up its nuclear capability.

But things are not made any better by pretending that we are making progress, as Washington seems to have decided to do, or by ignoring the real concerns of our allies. Our approach to North Korea calls for a lot more honesty and, in the eyes of those with more at risk, a greater dose of sincerity. There is more at stake here than just North Korean bombs.

Art Brown, a 25-year veteran of the C.I.A., was the head of the Asia division of the agency’s clandestine service from 2003 to 2005.

More nefarious proposals from Kemal Dervis & Associates

From the "Joint evaluation of UNDG contribution to the implementation
of the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness (first phase)"

20. UNDG should make increased use of national systems for support services, when appropriate and to the benefit of the partner countries, in order to strengthen national capacities and reduce transaction costs. Such support services include: procurement, security, information technology, telecommunications and banking, as well as planning, reporting and evaluation.

21. UNDG should further harmonize and simplify its business practices in order to increase the accountability and transparency of operational activities while ensuring that development assistance to partner countries is provided in a coherent fashion that supports capacity development. Practices that could be improved include: budgeting, audit functions, procurement systems, and professional expertise, including the adoption of the International Public Sector Accounting Standards.

22. UNDG should measure the cost of non-harmonized approaches to development assistance and further standardize and harmonize the concepts and practices to reduce transaction costs.

23. UNDG should create specific, measurable, achievable and relevant results frameworks and strategies that enable partner countries to design, monitor and evaluate results in the development of their capacities at different levels to achieve national development goals and progress towards the internationally agreed development goals, including the Millennium Development Goals.

24. It is recommended that UNDG encourage governments of partner countries to initiate and conduct joint and country-led evaluations to assess the contribution of the United Nations development system to national development plans and strategies, and to systematize and disseminate lessons learned from these exercises as mechanisms for mutual accountability.

25. UNDG should reinforce its commitment to strengthening the capacity of partner countries, at their request and with their ownership and leadership, to coordinate external assistance, including system-wide and sector-wide approaches and budget support, and to make the best possible use of such assistance, especially by being involved in national planning and monitoring processes and linking the aid effectiveness agenda to the broader development effectiveness
agenda.

26. UNDG should harmonize its approach among its members and other development partners to strengthen national capacities. Capacity development is commonly associated with various forms of support aimed at individuals (training), institutions (organizational development) and the enabling environment (support to policies and strategies). UNDG should contribute to the capacity of partner countries to optimize the use of new aid modalities.

27. UNDG should further develop and strengthen its knowledge management systems and expertise, including resources available at the regional level and from non-resident organizations, to better assist partner country needs for capacity development.

28. Incentives to implement the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness should address directly the factors that stand in the way of progress, especially with respect to harmonization. UNDG should address the structural obstacles to the adherence of the Paris Declaration principles as part of the broader United Nations reform process. This goes beyond the subject of the present evaluation, which addresses the implementation of the Paris Declaration, though it clearly affects the ability of UNDG to deliver development assistance efficiently.

29. UNDG should adopt a complementary approach to incorporating cross-cutting issues like gender mainstreaming, capacity development and rural development, as was done in response to HIV/AIDS. In addition, UNCTs should review the adequacy of their arrangements and efforts aimed at gender equality and rural development in countries with substantial rural poverty by going beyond social concerns and addressing rural poverty on a sustainable basis, thus recognizing in a systematic way the need for improvements in production and income.