III.B: Lessons Learned
Build on lessons learned Other Information:
24. Drawing on internal reflection and a variety of evaluations, UNDP has identified a number of crucial lessons that contribute
to a better understanding of its strengths and weaknesses. The lessons learnt provide much evidence of UNDP support to strong
development results and progress. In areas such as democratic governance and crisis prevention and recovery, experience shows
UNDP ability to deliver solid support to countries. In the area of poverty, UNDP advocacy and use of tools such as the Human
Development Reports and national MDG reports have provided powerful impetus to country efforts to scale up activities to achieve
the MDGs. UNDP has also been a major player in environment and energy issues through work with the Global Environmental Facility
(GEF) and Montreal Protocol programmes, which have mobilized significant funding. The organization has also stepped up developing
partnerships with civil society organizations and with the private sector. 25. In other areas, experience highlights a number
of areas for review: (a) The integration of the ‘development effectiveness drivers’ in the implementation of the MYFF, 2004-2007,
was uneven. This was due, in part, to the fact that they were large in number and relatively dissimilar in nature. Greater
focus was needed, with national ownership, South-South cooperation and gender equality deserving greater attention. At the
same time, with respect to capacity development, UNDP moved from a conceptual discussion to the development of practical tools,
based on experience, to enhanced impact at the country level, while strategic partnerships have become a mainstream practice
throughout its work. (b) Insufficient attention has been given to strengthening UNDP capacity to provide effective, practical
support to tackling income inequality or to promote the inclusion of marginalized groups. On promoting and mainstreaming gender
equality, for example, evaluations point up the need for systematic efforts backed by strong institutional structures, leadership
and resources. (c) With respect to key development policy issues, UNDP has played an active advocacy role for inclusive development
and the integration of human development concerns. UNDP has been less successful in moving beyond broad advocacy into specific
policy advice that would place inclusiveness and distributional concerns at the centre of policy design alongside macro-stability
and fiscal sustainability. The weight of the UNDP coordination role has also not been adequately felt in connecting countries
to wider United Nations resources, such as the Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA), the United Nations Conference
on Trade and Development, and non-resident specialized agencies. (d) While UNDP has demonstrated its capacity to assist countries
in dealing with conflict and natural disaster, in many instances UNDP and other organizations have stepped in after crises
have occurred or intensified. An evaluation of UNDP crisis prevention and recovery work suggests that UNDP needs to: (i) do
more to help address risks before crises occur; and (ii) help build capacity to respond faster to crises and put in place
early recovery actions even during humanitarian stages of crises; and (iii) have in place predictable internal funding and
resources for rapid deployment after crises. (e) Though UNDP has taken a lead operational role among United Nations organizations
in supporting the development of environmental management capacity in the developing world, these efforts could have been
better coordinated with the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and other agencies. Nor did UNDP focus sufficiently
on the integration of environmental concerns into the broader development agenda, such as dialogue on poverty reduction strategies.
(f) From a broader perspective, evaluations done by UNDP and other United Nations and non-United Nations organizations highlight
the need for programming to: (i) focus on the policy space specific to each country rather than broad generalizations (ii)
assist in quantifying priorities, (iii) help integrate activities across sectors for greater synergy and effectiveness, and
(iv) recognize the institutional capacity of each country and build on local knowledge and resources. (g) On the organizational
side, reviews suggest that the introduction of the multi-year funding framework (MYFF) helped to achieve better focus and
to promote a culture of results management. But the way UNDP organized around the MYFF, particularly in terms of the ‘service
line’ structure, partly accounts for the excessively sectoral approach to programming that the organization has often taken.
Cross-focus area collaboration on policy issues has sometimes been inadequate. (h) Finally, both internal and external audits
of UNDP have highlighted scope for improvement of accountability systems and for better risk management to deal with the growth
and increasing complexity of its operations.
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