Democratic Governance

Additional Funding for Innovative Governance Interventions
UNDP relies on a new instrument -- Thematic Trust Funds -- to help achieve development goals. These funds enable donors to provide additional contributions for work in the UNDP practice areas. They support a multi-year funding framework -- a compact among donors, host governments and UNDP to implement results-oriented programmes at the country, regional and global levels.

The Democratic Governance Thematic Trust Fund (DGTTF) was established in 2001 as a new instrument providing UNDP with additional (non core) resources to address development priorities in Democratic Governance. The DGTTF has the following three strategic objectives:

1. To provide an alternative to traditional funding arrangements (core and project-by-project cost-sharing), by functioning as a fast and flexible funding mechanism for innovative UNDP projects in Democratic Governance, mainly at the country level;
2. To support the Democratic Governance Practice Area at the global and level;
3. To provide a driving force for substantive and geographical alignment around the strategic focus of UNDP in the area of Democratic Governance, as expressed in the organisation's four year strategic planning framework: the Second Multi-Year Funding Framework (MYFF) 2004-2007.

As such, it provides donors with an opportunity, through their contributions, to strengthen their and UNDP's commitment to the promotion of a Democratic Governance agenda. Contributions from donors to the DGTTF can be made through three different “Windows”:

• Country Windows: for funds earmarked to specific countries for thematic activities
• Regional Windows: for funds earmarked to specific regional programmes for thematic activities
• Global Windows: for non-earmarked thematic contributions, for country, regional and global use.

Since its creation, DGTTF's principal donors to the Global Window have been Norway, the Netherlands, Germany and Italy, together with Finland, Portugal, Austria, Luxembourg, New Zealand and the Norwegian company Statoil. The total contributions to this window from 2001-2004 was US$ 51,3 mill.

Management Arrangements
The Trust Fund is managed by the Bureau for Development Policy (BDP). Allocations from the Global Window are made on an annual basis and the management structure of the DGTTF is aligned with the annual programming exercise.

The daily management is ensured by the Democratic Governance Practice Manager, who is also the Trust Fund Manager, and the Trust Fund Coordinator. All major decisions regarding the guidelines of the different editions, the assessment of project proposals and the allocation of resources to country offices are made by an Allocation Commission. The Commission is chaired by the Democratic Governance Group (DGG) Leader and is composed of the BDP Policy Support Coordinator, Governance Policy Advisors from headquarters and the Oslo Governance Centre, representatives from each of the Regional Bureaux and the Bureau for Resources and Strategic Partnerships (BRSP) in addition to the Trust Fund Coordinator and the Trust Fund Manager.

Allocations
According to the general framework governing the DGTTF, 30% of the contributions to the Global Window are to be applied to global projects with the aim of strengthening the Democratic Governance Practice, i.e. the role of BDP as a provider of technical services to Country Offices.The Oslo Governance Centre is for instance funded through this mechanism. The remaining 70% is earmarked for projects at the country level. Out of this envelope, 60% are allocated in favour of Least Developed Countries (LDC) and Africa, 10% in favour of Low Income Countries (LICs) while the remaining 30 is made available to the other CO. Over the years, the request for funding has largely exceeded the resources available. In 2005, the Trust Fund Manager received requests from Country Offices for US$ 22 mill. for an available envelope of US$ 12 mill.

To be eligible for funding from the Global Window, projects need to strengthen national development strategies aimed at the attainment of the MDGs and fall within the following Service Lines for Democratic Governance as established by the Second MYFF: Parliamentary development; Electoral systems and processes; Justice and human rights; E-governance and access to information; Decentralization, local governance and urban/rural development; and Public administration reform and anti-corruption.

Both Decentralization/Local Governance and Justice/Human Rights projects were first in demand through the DG TTF in 2006.