Distr.
GENERAL

DP/CCF/MAR/1/EXTENSION I

26 October 1999

ORIGINAL: ENGLISH

First regular session 2000

24-28 and 31 January 2000, New York
Item 3 of the provisional agenda
UNDP

COUNTRY COOPERATION FRAMEWORKS AND RELATED MATTERS

EXTENSION OF THE FIRST COUNTRY COOPERATION FRAMEWORK FOR MAURITIUS

1. The current country cooperation framework (CCF) for Mauritius, covering the period 1997-1999, expires in December 1999. The first country review is scheduled for the first half of 2000. The CCF review will provide inputs for the formulation of the next CCF and will be submitted to the Regional Bureau in the last quarter of 2000.

2. Given the broad national development objectives, the CCF for 1997-1999 focuses on capacity development at the policy and strategy levels to improve governance, enhance the performance of the judiciary, improve regulatory frameworks and facilitate emergence of new productive endeavours and economic opportunities, decentralize public administration, protect biodiversity and conserve the terrestrial and marine environment, reform the learning system, increase opportunities for gender equality, civil society empowerment, policy analysis and management to promote gender mainstreaming, environmental protection and sustainable livelihoods, and eradicate poverty.

4. During the extension period, the first National Human Development Report for Mauritius will be published, assessing governance from a sustainable human development perspective. A set of coherent long- and medium-term policies and strategies in the areas of investment, governance, poverty eradication, gender-mainstreaming, private sector development, will have been developed or initiated. At the same time, national capacities will have been developed to develop autonomously and adapt these policies to the rapidly evolving domestic and international context in which the socio-economic development of Mauritius must take place.

5. The common country assessment (CCA) for the United Nations system in Mauritius will be finalized in November 1999, covering national needs and priorities, following which the preparation of the United Nations Development Assistance Framework (UNDAF) will be initiated with the organization of a United Nations retreat in December 1999, in order to agree on the strategic focus of future cooperation between the United Nations system and the programme country and on the respective outputs of the committees that will draft the UNDAF document. It is planned that the UNDAF process will be completed by May 2000, including government agreement. Both CCA and UNDAF will serve as the planning framework for the new CCF. Within this framework, the Government of Mauritius will collaborate with the UNDP Resident Representative to start a participatory process with all development partners. At the outset of the preparation for the next CCF, the UNDP Resident Representative, in consultation with the Government of Mauritius, will review the country strategy note 1993-1997 of the United Nations and the Government of Mauritius, the Vision 2020 national long-term perspective study for Mauritius (published in 1997), the 1999-2004 National Development Strategy (currently being developed by the Ministry of Economic Development, Productivity and Regional Development) and the first national human development report for Mauritius, which is scheduled to be finalized by the end of December 1999. National Action Plans, such as the National Environmental Action Plan II as well as the National Gender Action Plan, will be taken into account.

6. The extension of the CCF (from January until December 2000), will make it possible to harmonize the programme cycles of UNDP, UNFPA and UNICEF in Mauritius as from 2001 (start year) and to use the results and lessons learned from the CCF review as input for the next CCF.

7. The Administrator wishes to inform the Executive Board that he has approved the extension of the first country cooperation framework for Mauritius for a period of one year, beginning on 1 January 2000.

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