Annual Report 2008

Developing capacities to deliver results

UNDP’s most important asset is its people. Every day, thousands of men and women work hard to bring the world’s development goals to fruition. UNDP remains committed to empowering them to serve safely and effectively.

UNDP Associate Administrator Ad Melkert listens to Patrick Ibrahim Yakowa, Deputy Governor of Kaduna State in Nigeria, on progress achieved in Pampaida, Kaduna, one of 13 Millennium Villages in Africa.

UNDP’s work takes place in a wide range of environments. Colleagues work right within the populations they serve, sharing in the everyday realities of life in their duty stations. The element of risk can sometimes be high. On 11 December 2007, a car bomb exploded in the vicinity of the UNHCR and UNDP offices in Algeria. Seventeen UN colleagues were killed, including seven who worked for UNDP.

With staff serving often under difficult and dangerous conditions, staff safety and security remain a top priority for UNDP. One of the ways in which UNDP is addressing this is in its 2008-2009 support budget, which calls for $87 million to support security costs mandated by the UN system and by UNDP, as well as an additional $10 million to cover unforeseen emergency requirements.

Beyond issues of security, UNDP is constantly seeking ways to sustain strong morale across the organization and to ensure that good performance is justly recognized. Recent measures include a Staff Wellbeing Guide that comprises work-life and well-being recommendations for coping with the demands of the workplace. Colleagues across the world are also contributing to the development of a new human resources strategy, which will address qualitative issues such as maintaining a good work-life balance.

UNDP strives to ensure personal growth opportunities that allow for employees to maintain marketable skills. The organization invests in staff development with wider opportunities for professional certification and training, including through its Virtual Development Academy, a set of online courses co-certified with leading universities. In 2007, 64 staff members graduated from the Academy. Recruitment and succession management processes have also been strengthened to support enhanced capacity at the country level while ensuring continuity of quality service.

Since the Beijing Platform for Action in 1995, a number of General Assembly resolutions have called for gender parity within all UN organizations. UNDP has set a target to achieve 50-50 gender balance in its staff by 2010. As a result, currently 49 percent of all UNDP staff are women; at the level of Assistant Secretary-General, women now head five major Bureaux within UNDP. A new Gender Equality and Diversity Unit has been established, and many UNDP offices now include gender parity – with specific outputs and targets – in the management work plans and results-based budget submissions.

In keeping with its core principle of managing for results, UNDP continues to foster a corporate culture that emphasizes results-based development. Guided by the Strategic Plan, the organization is strengthening its monitoring, evaluation, accountability and oversight capacities for optimal service delivery.

In the past year, UNDP has begun planning for the adoption of International Public Sector Accounting Standards (IPSAS), which are considered the most transparent accounting practice for public-sector institutions. With plans to adopt IPSAS in 2010, UNDP will join the 53 countries, including many developing nations, and many international organizations that have either adopted or are in the process of adopting IPSAS.

Practical steps towards greater accountability include three recent corporate initiatives. The first aims to enhance standards for accountability and transparency by providing Country Offices and corporate units with up-to-date programming and operational policies and procedures for delivering results. The second is an enhanced results-based management platform to facilitate the planning, monitoring and reporting of country, regional and global results by serving as a single gateway that can be customized to meet the needs of a wide variety of users. The third is a corporate risk management framework that integrates all tools and procedures for risk management into one system, facilitating strategic planning and decision-making.

As an organization accountable for demonstrating results, UNDP has made a conscious choice to open itself up to scrutiny, both through access to its own instruments as well as through the assessment tools of partners. This openness includes new corporate standards for UNDP Country Office websites under a revamped Information Disclosure Policy, which requires procurement and project expenditure information to be included. UNDP also successfully implemented the Financial Disclosure Policy in line with the UN and the associated funds and programmes. An Ethics Office has been established and an Ethics Adviser has been appointed. The Adviser works closely with the UN Ethics Committee, which seeks to establish a unified set of standards and policies across the UN system.

The priority on measuring effectiveness is reflected in the many surveys UNDP conducts throughout the year, starting with its own Global Staff Survey. Now in its ninth year, the survey’s high participation rates among staff indicate the value placed in the exercise. Since 2002, UNDP has also been the subject of a survey by its external partners, soliciting detailed feedback at the national, regional and global level. Over 3,000 stakeholders, including host governments, CSOs, donor partners, UN and other multilateral counterparts, participated in the last survey, which was conducted by an outside assessment firm. Data from these surveys show a steady improvement in UNDP’s overall effectiveness.

Other assessments support this conclusion. The independent think-tank, the London-based Overseas Development Institute, surveyed the effectiveness of seven multilateral agencies through the eyes of key stakeholders in selected programme countries. It captured the opinions of recipient governments, parliaments, businesses and CSOs focusing on how multilateral agencies promote national ownership, build local capacity and provide effective policy advice. The results of this survey ranked UNDP as first preference among multilateral organizations for disbursing additional overseas development assistance. Similarly, UNDP received top ranking among 30 peer organizations on the 2007 Global Accountability Report published by the United Kingdom’s One World Trust, a leading expert in the field of global governance and accountability. UNDP scored highest overall, coming first or second in three of the survey’s four dimensions of accountability – transparency, participation, evaluation, and complaint and response. And the 2007 Multinational Organizational Performance Assessment Network survey, conducted by a group of 10 donor countries, rated UNDP favourably in terms of policy dialogue, quality of technical advice, advocacy around government campaigns and alignment with national poverty reduction strategies. The survey also commended UNDP in information-sharing, inter-agency coordination and harmonization.

With its results-based approach to service delivery growing steadily stronger, UNDP continues to improve its effectiveness as a development partner.