III.C: The UNDP Business Model

Strengthen the UNDP business model

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26. Global development challenges, lessons learned, and General Assembly-directed United Nations reform, all point to the need for strengthening the UNDP business model, built on the three elements of coordination, advocacy and development services in line with the support UNDP provides to programme countries towards the fulfillment of their national development strategies. Key features of the strengthened UNDP business model include: (a) The services of UNDP remain fully responsive to national priorities, in line with 34/213, which affirmed the responsibility of Government in coordinating assistance at national level; (b) Enhanced support for United Nations coordination, in line with the affirmation by 34/213 of the role of the resident coordinator in terms of overall responsibility for and coordination of operational activities for development at country level, and the subsequent recommendations of 59/250 to provide further support to the resident coordinator system; (c) Using the extensive partnerships of UNDP to scale up the scope and impact of its work in all areas. In addition to core partnerships with other United Nations organizations and governments, UNDP will pursue innovative strategic partnerships with civil society organizations and networks, as well as with the private sector. South-South cooperation will be an important element of corporate and country-level partnership strategies. UNDP will identify initiatives annually that gradually widen the array and impact of partnerships. These will include: (i) Strengthening existing partnership arrangements, reflected in memoranda of understanding with United Nations partners, to ensure a practical division of labour and to create synergies; (ii) Seeking more structured partnerships with international financial institutions, in particular the World Bank, in at least three critical areas by 2008: MDGs and poverty reduction; early recovery; and aid effectiveness; (iii) Establishing networks, including South-South networks, for United Nations system-wide support to boost local entrepreneurship, private-sector development and civil society in at least 50 countries by 2009, in collaboration with United Nations partners; (d) Refined internal institutional arrangements of UNDP to bring corporate and regional policy and advisory support closer to where they are needed on the ground and to make those services more responsive to country programme needs. That will entail understanding the different contexts in which UNDP works and tailoring its services (advocacy, policy and advisory, technical support) to the specific needs of programme countries; (e) Effective knowledge management through the use of the UNDP global presence and knowledge and resource management systems – two of its main comparative advantages. To deliver effectively on the agenda laid out in this plan, UNDP must: (a) further expand and improve its existing knowledge networks; (b) open the networks to other United Nations staff and help build open United Nations-wide knowledge networks; and (c) gradually open the networks to allow direct participation by external experts, civil society and institutions. Work has already begun in all three areas.

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