Mr Chairman,
Let me start by thanking the Administrator and the Associate Administrator for their statements this morning.
The UNDP is a cornerstone of our common, multilateral efforts to promote development, eradicate poverty and meet the Millennium Development Goals. Sweden has a persistent and profound commitment to supporting the UNDP as one of its top financial contributors. Cooperation with UNDP field offices around the world is a priority for our missions abroad.
This week’s meeting is a critical opportunity to reinforce the UNDP through putting in place instruments that can serve to guide the Administrator and his staff for the years to come. Sweden looks forward to the Executive Board deliberations on a strong programme of work to implement UN policies over the next four years, and to effective institutional arrangements that can serve both governments and the UNDP secretariat.
Sweden appreciates and strongly supports the efforts by the Administrator to move from the current Multi-Year Funding Framework format, which is mainly a resource mobilisation framework, toward an integrated strategic approach based on the notion of managing for development results. We recognize that this approach is a major challenge for an organisation with a global mandate and operations in over 130 countries.
With this in mind, we consider the draft Strategic Plan to be an important step in the right direction. It identifies what UNDP expects to deliver over the next four years and outlines how the organisation intends to invest its resources in order to reach these expectations. We welcome this approach and encourage further refinement of the results matrixes to enable effective implementation. The draft Plan is not only a management tool for the organisation, it should also serve as the basis for accountability to all the stakeholders of UNDP, donors and programme countries alike. It is therefore fundamental for securing a sufficient flow of core contributions.
Sweden welcomes the conference paper on the existing accountability framework as a basis for further discussion on this important matter. We look forward to engaging in a process leading up to a final decision by the Executive Board in January. As we have expressed at previous occasions, we consider the Strategic Plan, the budget instruments and the accountability framework to be closely interlinked.
Sweden supports UNDP’s approach to gender as an integrated dimension in its work. Moreover, we welcome UNDP’s focus on environment and recall the lesson learned from the previous Multi-Year Funding Framework that the integration of environment into a broader development agenda is essential. In addition to its direct operations relating to the environment, UNDP should ensure that its programmes are environmentally sensitive.
The MDGs represent our common direction. The Monterrey Consensus and the Paris Declaration provide us with an agreed toolbox. National ownership is an intrinsic value in this development compact. We expect the UNDP to continue to pursue demand-driven programmes in support of national priorities.
Consensus has evolved over the past years in the United Nations that development, peace and security and human rights are interlinked and mutually reinforcing. There is universal agreement at the highest political level to promote all human rights and fundamental freedoms. For Sweden, the promotion of human rights is a fundamental part of development cooperation and a natural ingredient in our support to multilateral organizations.
For almost 10 years, the UNDP has been guided in its operations by a policy issued in 1998 on integrating human rights with sustainable human development. A human rights based approach to development seeks the realisation of the dignity and worth inherent in every human being. As stated in the UN Common Understanding on Human Rights-Based Approach to Development Cooperation and Programming, its implementation is a cross-cutting method to programming and involves mainly capacity-building activities.
We expect UNDP to continue to develop this approach and to monitor and report progress with respect to its application. This is why Sweden maintains that human rights should be clearly reflected in the Strategic Plan and the human rights-based approach should be an integral part of the results framework. It is not about political conditionality, but about effectively achieving human development. UNDP programme countries will not be held accountable, UNDP will. Sweden is thus very concerned that the application of a human rights-based approach to development is not mentioned in the draft Strategic Plan.
Over the course of the week, we need to ensure that human rights gets the attention that it deserves in UNDP’s work. We should provide the Administrator with clear guidance that reflects the commitments that our Governments have made to promote human rights universally.
Thank you