The scheme will test how the greater UN family can ensure efficient and more effective development operations, while aiming to speed up activities to help achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), eight targets for tackling poverty, hunger and other social ills by 2015.

The reform projects – also set to be carried out in Albania, Cape Verde, Mozambique, Pakistan, Tanzania, Uruguay and Viet Nam – will consolidate the UN’s presence by replacing current structures with one leader, one programme and one budget, thus allowing various UN agencies to play to their strengths while also building on the strengths of different members of the UN family.

The UN Resident Coordinator in Rwanda, Moustapha Soumaré, said the main goal of the “One UN” approach in the country is to craft a more efficient UN to create a better future for Rwandans.

He also commended the country’s Government for its support of the “One UN” project.

“Rwanda would not have been selected as pilot for the implementation of the One UN Reform without the efforts of its Government, which demonstrated the desire and the commitment to play an essential role as the main owner of these reforms,” he added.

“Rwanda is proud to have been selected as a pilot country for the implementation of the One UN Reform at country level,” Rwanda’s Minister of Finance and Economic Planning James Musoni said at a signing ceremony on Tuesday attended by Government representatives, UN agencies and the donor community.

“The efficiency of the UN agencies is crucial to the success of Rwanda’s development endeavors,” he added, voicing hope that the reforms will help his country to meet the challenges posed by the MDGs.

The initiative is part of the larger reform efforts called for in a report by a group of experts, called the UN High-Level Panel on System-wide Coherence. Entitled Delivering as One, the report recognized the UN’s importance in fostering development, but pointed out inadequacies in the current system.