LocationsUNDP and the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) explore how to better connect international solidarity efforts from French decentralized cooperation actors with UNDP’s worldwide multilateral network at country-level.
UNDP and French government new partnership
May 17, 2022
Photo: UNDP Geneva 2022\ Agi Veres, UNDP Geneva Director, and Xavier D’Argoeuves, French Deputy Delegate
5th April 2022, Geneva - On the occasion of the Forum of Mayors, Agi Veres, UNDP Geneva Director, and Xavier D’Argoeuves, French Deputy Delegate for external action of local governments, signed the first phase of a cooperation agreement, dedicated to identifying concrete collaboration opportunities at the country level. The aim is to better articulate these bilateral initiatives with existing multilateral/UNDP programmes, particularly in areas where French decentralized cooperation is the most active: Africa and the Middle-East.
Some complementarities already appear:
- between UNDP’s significant presence in the field and French local governments willingness to develop their cooperation with new territories (particularly when action are hindered due to the security context)
- between UNDP’s expertise on integrated strategic planning and French decentralized cooperations actors’ capacity to deploy dedicated human and financial resources to support local governance efforts;
- between the deep relationships built over time by French local governments with their foreign counterparts and UNDP’s ambition to develop its partnerships with the local level to accelerate the progress on SDGs.
The creation of future synergies will be facilitated by the groundwork and networks already established between the French MFA and UNDP, through the framework of the former UNDP ART initiative (Articulation of Territorial Networks).*
Since France is now further increasing its support to decentralized cooperation, this is a strategic moment to explore how we can promote synergies through these inclusive local partnerships and scale up joint actions.
French support to decentralized cooperation
Contact:
Portfolio Manager – Bilateral and Multilateral Partnership
Alexis Laffittan: alexis.laffittan@undp.org
* This initiative implemented from 2013 to 2021 and has enabled to strengthen the French decentralization cooperation actors’ ownership of the global agendas (2030 Agenda, Paris Agreement, Sendai Framework, etc). It has also helped boost their participation in international networks and programmes to share their expertise and engage into knowledge-sharing platforms, and some pilot initiatives were tested to support the alignment of methodologies with UNDP’s local governance and local development programmes.
