Deputy Secretary-General Rallies Economic and Social Council around ‘Shared Opportunity’ to Reposition United Nations Development System
Following are UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina J. Mohammed’s remarks at the Economic and Social Council consultations on the Quadrennial Comprehensive Policy Review (QCPR), in New York today:
I am pleased to be with you today. In my first day in office, on 28 February, I had the honour to outline our initial plans and hear your perspectives on repositioning the UN Development System so it could better support implementation of the 2030 Agenda [for Sustainable Development].
Much has happened since then. We are working full speed to deliver the first report from the Secretary-General in June. We are engaged in an open and inclusive consultation process, and I have created an internal mechanism to follow-up on the QCPR mandates to ensure we move forward transparently and as one.
We have advanced important technical work and studies to ensure evidence-based proposals. We are carrying out in-house research to draw on the perspectives of Member States on accountability, transparency, coordination and oversight. And we are working with external experts to gather and analyse the extensive data underpinning the system-wide outline of functions and capacities. This is the first time this is done in such scale.
Regular meetings with the Secretary-General are helping to foster alignment between the United Nations development system review and other reform processes in the areas of management, peace and security, with “prevention” serving as a golden thread. This also includes the work done on gender parity.
A reference group of individuals with recognized experience in development practice and policy is now operational. The group will serve as an informal “sounding board” to help the Secretary-General and myself to test some ideas that may feed into our upcoming proposals. In addition, the UN system is already at work to deliver on the immediate mandates of the QCPR, including those applying to individual entities.
The consultations held so far have confirmed that we need to be ambitious. Building on what exists is important, but we will also introduce changes to live up to the ambition set by Member States through the 2030 Agenda, the Addis Ababa agenda and climate commitments.
Small adjustments, alone, will not make the cut. The 2030 Agenda represents a paradigm shift. We need to move from current practice to being better coordinated, integrated and coherent at the country level. From a focus on process to real accountability to system-wide results in countries. The consultations were also instrumental in helping to shape a common understanding on the direction of change.
I believe some elements are clear: First, a new generation of country teams is required to deliver on the ambitious and complex 2030 Agenda. United Nations teams on the ground will need a new set of tools and capacities to help Governments unlock the potential of partnerships and financing. Traditional coordination tools are no longer enough. We need so much more to effectively service the new agenda.
The Department of Economic and Social Affairs and Regional Commissions — and their synergies with United Nations country teams — will be critical in this regard. We need to better connect global to local, with regional expertise playing an important role.
Second, there is no one-size-fits-all in terms of United Nations support to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). We want to ensure the United Nations system truly adapts its support, functions, capacities and expertise to nationally defined priorities.
More than “flexibility”, we will aim for “modularity”, as each country context is unique. Each country has a different set of needs and financing portfolios to deliver on the SDGs. We need a United Nations system that can identify and respond to the specificities, on a country-by-country basis.
We intend to propose specific criteria that could help determine the optimal United Nations configuration on the ground, including instances where agency colocation would make more sense than maintaining individual offices. This is one of the main transformative steps required by the 2030 Agenda, as priority-setting cannot happen on a sectoral, vertical manner.
Third, the United Nations system needs to display a much higher degree of cohesion. Soft coordination and information exchange among United Nations agencies will not suffice as countries strive to deal with complex, intersectoral trade-offs to localize and deliver on the Goals. In this context, we are also reviewing whether United Nations Development Assistance Frameworks remain an effective planning instrument and how they could be strengthened to be more responsive.
Fourth, resident coordinators need to be impartial and competent arrowheads of a transformed United Nations development system. We are, therefore, devising proposals to strengthen the authority and impartiality of the resident coordinators and ensure that they have the right profiles and expertise. In doing so, we are conscious that leadership does not flow from formal authority alone.
Resident coordinators and their offices need to be perceived as thought leaders, with the substantive capacities to rally the system around common priorities and oversee results. Resident coordinators should be the one-stop shop for system-wide partnerships and relationships with other international organizations, business communities and civil society, all while anchored in the United Nations’ partnership framework with the national Government, which must be in the driving seat.
We are also acutely aware that as we strengthen the authority of resident coordinators, there needs to be commensurate accountability and impartiality. We will work to reinforce reporting lines from United Nations country teams to resident coordinators, and from resident coordinators to host Governments and to the Secretary-General. Increased impartiality will also need to be reflected at the regional and global levels.
Fifth, creating the right incentives for collaboration is a condition for any successful review. Financing is a central piece. I have heard you on the need to be bold and innovative in seeking additional financing, while remaining firm in upholding commitments for official development assistance. It is important to keep the momentum to ensure robust follow-up to the Addis agenda.
I believe there is consensus around the notion that resources allocated to the United Nations system should foster cohesion rather than competition. We will work on mechanisms to mitigate the current fragmentation of the United Nations funding architecture, while strengthening accountability around common results to ensure “value for money” for our partners.
Accountability is also instrumental to incentivizing collaboration, as we increasingly focus on system-wide transparency and evaluation rather than agency-specific exercises.
Sixth, we need to strengthen our engagement with Member States on SDG implementation. Just as we seek to hold countries accountable for results through the High-Level Political Forum (HLPF), we would like to work with you in creating a space to review the United Nations’ collective support to the 2030 Agenda. The Economic and Social Council and the HLPF would provide excellent venues for this interface.
Finally, we need to reposition the United Nations development system at the forefront of policymaking and innovation, including on “frontier issues” stemming from changes in science and technology. This will require more clarity in the relationship and division of labour between regional Economic Commissions and the United Nations Development Group entities.
The truest test of our review efforts will come on the ground, through tangible results for the people we serve. While I have outlined areas where I see relative consensus, there is still some way to go in identifying a path forward on some of the QCPR mandates that require a particularly delicate balance. This includes the imperative of recognizing and engaging on ways to address the humanitarian, development and peace nexus. We also need to work collaboratively with Member States in defining the specific contours of a revamped resident coordinator’s system and in addressing the funding of the United Nations system and its coordination function.
I will continue to engage with you in the coming weeks before briefing this Council in June with the Secretary-General’s vision and proposals. We will be working with the ECOSOC Bureau to identify the best format for the June discussion, considering that the United Nations review process will extend until the end of the year. All Member States will be invited to be part of these discussions.
But consideration of ideas and proposals need not wait for June. We have entered a critical period to hear your perspectives and ideas. Our doors are always open. We have a collective responsibility — and a shared opportunity — to reposition the United Nations development system for years to come, ensuring it is up to the task as we deliver the Sustainable Development Goals to everybody, everywhere. You can count on the commitment of the Secretary-General and me to honour the level of ambition you have set out in the QCPR resolution. I sincerely believe that, together, we can take the bold steps that the new agenda requires and that humanity deserves. I now look forward to hearing your questions or suggestions.