The Netherlands and UNDP

For the past ten years, the Netherlands has consistently been amongst the top donors to UNDP's regular (core) resources. The donor ranked #1 in 2005 and 2006 with a core annual contribution of €90 million ($114 million in 2006), providing well over 12% of UNDP's regular resources.

The Netherlands is also a significant contributor to non-core resources with total earmarked contributions totalling $57 million in 2006. The donor maintains an extensive network of bilateral programmes in all regions of UNDP operations, which is reflected in its diverse support to UNDP programmes in the field. This latter sum included contributions to UNDP's Gender, Democratic Governance and Crisis Prevention and Recovery Thematic Trust Funds, as well as numerous country-level contributions.

The Netherlands has also recently introduced multi-year pledges to UNDP’s regular resources. The first such pledge covers the period through 2007.

A constructive partnership

In addition to its financial contribution, the Netherlands has been very active and constructive in its engagement with UNDP on a number of organizational and policy matters, both at the Executive Board and in its relations with other development partners. These issues include:

• enhancing country-level performance and encouraging better reporting from the field,



• promoting policy coherence and coordination among UN agencies and partners,



• furthering gender programming and mainstreaming within UNDP.

One of the most notable ways in which the Netherlands contributes to enhancing the performance of UNDP is through the Multilateral Organizations Performance Assessment Network (MOPAN), developed by a group of eight bilateral donors to consolidate the views of their country representatives on the effectiveness of multilateral partnerships. In 2004, MOPAN surveyed the performance of three multilateral agencies, including UNDP, in 10 recipient countries. The assessment is fundamentally a survey of perceptions, which focuses on behavioral aspects of performance: the quality of national partnerships and the quality of inter-agency partnerships. Click here to download "Assessing UNDP, Overview of recent surveys" (April 2005).

A new direction for Dutch development policy

In 2003 the Netherlands approved a new development policy, including a closer integration with foreign policy, a coherent regional approach with a strong focus on Africa (poverty reduction and economic growth in Africa will continue receiving 50% of the bilateral development budget) as well as a greater role for civil society organisations and the private sector.

The thematic priority of the Netherlands is sustainable poverty reduction built around the MDGs, with a special emphasis on education, HIV/Aids, reproductive health and rights, and environment and water. Other thematic areas include post-conflict rehabilitation and democratic governance.

As part of its effort to promote efficiency and effectiveness, the Netherlands is now working in 36 programme countries, all of which are eligible thanks to their sound policies and good governance practices.

The Netherlands is taking an increasingly regional and sectoral approach to development. This approach is apparent in the country's support for conflict management and reconciliation in the Horn of Africa, the Great Lakes region and the Western Balkans.

* Regular, or core resources, are voluntary contributions by member states that constitute the basis of UNDP's yearly budget. Non-core resources are separate funds earmarked by the donors for specific countries, programmes and projects.