Review of UN-Habitat's Participation in the Delivering as One UN Initiative

Evaluation Report 5/2011

Review of UN-Habitat’sParticipation in the Delivering as One UN Initiative

DEcEmbER 2011

december 2011

evaluation report 5/2011

Review of UN-Habitat’sParticipation in the Delivering as One UN Initiative

ii review of UN-Habitat’s ParticiPatioN iN tHe deliveriNg as oNe UN iNitiative

Evaluation Report 5/2011 Review of UN-Habitat’s Participation in the Delivering as One UN Initiative

This report is available from http//www.unhabitat.org/evaluations

First published in Nairobi in December 2011 by UN-Habitat. Copyright © United Nations Human Settlements Programme 2011

Produced by Monitoring and Evaluation UnitUnited Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat) P. O. Box 30030, 00100 Nairobi GPO KENYATel: 254-020-7623120 (Central Office) www.unhabitat.org

HS Number: HS/060/12EISBN Number (Series): 978-92-1-132028-2ISBN Number (Volume): 978-92-1-132475-4

disclaimer

The designations employed and the presentation of the material in this publication do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of the Secretariat of the United Nations concerning the legal status of any country, territory, city or area or of its authorities, or concerning the delimitation of its frontiers of boundaries.

Views expressed in this publication do not necessarily reflect those of the United Nations Human Settlements Programme, the United Nations, or its Member States.

Excerpts may be reproduced without authorization, on condition that the source is indicated.

acknowledgements

Authors: Johan HyltenstamEditor: UNON Conference Services Design & Layout: Peter Cheseret

Photos: © UN-Habitat & Julius Mwelu/UN-Habitat

iiireview of UN-Habitat’s ParticiPatioN iN tHe deliveriNg as oNe UN iNitiative

Table of ConTenTs

acroNYms aNd abbreviatioNs ....................................................................................................................... v

execUtive sUmmarY .......................................................................................................................................... 1

I. Introduction ................................................................................................................................... 1

Ii. Methodology ................................................................................................................................. 1

Iii. Key findings ................................................................................................................................... 2

V. Conclusions .................................................................................................................................... 2

Vi. Lessons learned .............................................................................................................................. 4

Vii. Key recommendations ................................................................................................................... 5

1. iNtrodUctioN aNd bacKgroUNd .............................................................................................. 6

1.1 Introduction .................................................................................................................................. 6

1.2 Background .................................................................................................................................... 6

1.3 Objectives and relevance of DaO for UN-Habitat ....................................................................... 9

1.4 Outline of the report ................................................................................................................... 10

2. review metHodologY aNd scoPe .......................................................................................... 11

2.1 Data collection methods ............................................................................................................. 11

2.2 Data analysis ................................................................................................................................ 12

2.3 Scope ........................................................................................................................................... 12

2.4 Management of the review process ........................................................................................... 13

3. KeY fiNdiNgs oN UN-Habitat ParticiPatioN iN tHe dao Process iN tHe Pilot coUNtries .............................................................................................................. 14

3.1 Cape Verde ................................................................................................................................... 14

3.2 Mozambique ................................................................................................................................ 15

3.3 Pakistan ........................................................................................................................................ 16

3.4 Rwanda ......................................................................................................................................... 18

3.5 Tanzania ....................................................................................................................................... 19

3.6 Vietnam ........................................................................................................................................ 20

4. UN-Habitat ParticiPatioN iN dao: cHalleNges aNd oPPortUNities ............................... 23

4.1 Introduction ................................................................................................................................. 23

4.2 Challenges and opportunities for country offices ..................................................................... 24

4.3 Challenges and opportunities for headquarters and regional offices ..................................... 27

5. coNclUsioNs, lessoNs learNed aNd recommeNdatioNs ................................................ 33

5.1 Conclusions ................................................................................................................................... 33

5.2 Lessons learned ............................................................................................................................ 36

5.3 Recommendations ....................................................................................................................... 37

aNNex i: terms of refereNce ....................................................................................................... 41

aNNex ii: list of PeoPle iNterviewed ......................................................................................... 49

aNNex iii: coUNtrY iNformatioN ................................................................................................ 51

iv review of UN-Habitat’s ParticiPatioN iN tHe deliveriNg as oNe UN iNitiative

lIsT of Tables

tables

Table 4.1: Staffing table of UN-Habitat country teams 25

Table 4.2: Source of funding for UN-Habitat DaO projects 30

vreview of UN-Habitat’s ParticiPatioN iN tHe deliveriNg as oNe UN iNitiative

ANAMM National Association of Municipalities of Mozambique

AOS Agency Operational Support

CPM Country Programme Manager

DaO Delivering as One

DESA Department for Economic and Social Affairs

DOCO Development Operations Coordination Office

ECHO European Commission—Directorate-General for Humanitarian Aid & Civil Protection

ENOF Enhanced Normative and Operational Framework

ERRA Earthquake Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Authority (Pakistan)

ExCom Executive Committee Agencies (UNDP, UNICEF and UNFPA)

FAO Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations

FIPAG Fund for Investment in Water Infrastructure (Mozambique)

GC Governing Council

GEF Global Environment Facility

GOV Government of Vietnam

HACT Harmonized Approach to Cash Transfer

HCPD Habitat Country Programme Document

HIV Human Immunodeficiency Virus

HPM Habitat Programme Manager

HPPMG Harmonized Programme and Project Management Guidelines

HSO Human Settlements Officer

ILO International Labour Organisation

IMIS Integrated Management Information System

INAM National Institute of Meteorology (Mozambique)

INE National Institute of Statistics (Instituto Nacional de Estadisticas)

INGC National Institute for Disasters Management (Mozambique)

IT Information Technology

JPO Junior Professional Officer

LMDG Like Minded Donor Group

MAE Ministry of State Administration (Mozambique)

MDG Millennium Development Goals

MDTF Multi Donor Trust Fund

ME Ministry of Energy (Mozambique)

MekSan Mekong Sanitation Project

MIC Middle Income Country

MICOA Ministry for Coordination of Environmental Affairs (Mozambique)

MIMAS Ministry of Women and Social Action (Mozambique)

MINAG Ministry of Agriculture (Mozambique)

MINED Ministry of Education (Mozambique)

MININFRA Ministry in charge of Housing and Urban Development (Rwanda)

MISAU Ministry of Health (Mozambique)

MOPH Ministry of Public Works and Housing (Mozambique)

MOU Memorandum of Understanding

MTSIP Medium-Term Strategic and Institutional Plan

aCRonYMs anD abbReVIaTIons

vi review of UN-Habitat’s ParticiPatioN iN tHe deliveriNg as oNe UN iNitiative

NRAs Non Resident Agencies

ODA Official Development Assistance

OPF One Plan Fund

OPFMAC One Plan Fund Mobilization and Allocation Committee

PARP Action Plan for Poverty Reduction

PARPA Action Plan for Acute Poverty Reduction

PRSP Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper

PSD Programme Support Division

PSUP Participatory Slum Upgrading Programme

RO Regional Office

ROAAS Regional Office for Africa and the Arab States

ROAP Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific

RTCD Regional and Technical Cooperation Division

SBA Standard Basic Agreements

SEDP Socio-Economic Development Plan

TOR Terms of Reference

UN United Nations

UN-Habitat United Nations Human Settlements Programme

UNCDF United Nations Capital Development Fund

UNCT United Nations Country Team

UNDAF United Nations Development Assistance Framework

UNDAP United Nations Development Assistance Plan (Tanzania)

UNDG United Nations Development Group

UNDP United Nations Development Programme

UNEP United Nations Environment Programme

UNESCO United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization

UNFPA United Nations Fund for Population Activities

UNHCR United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees

UNICEF United Nations Children’s Fund

UNIDO United Nations Industrial Development Organisation

UNIFEM United Nations Development Fund for Women

UNON United Nations Office at Nairobi

UNV United Nations Volunteer

USD United States Dollar

WAC Water for African Cities

WASH Water, Sanitation and Health Programme

WFP World Food Programme

WHO World Health Organisation

ZAWA Zanzibar Water and Sanitation Authority (Tanzania)

1review of UN-Habitat’s ParticiPatioN iN tHe deliveriNg as oNe UN iNitiative

exeCuTIVe suMMaRY

i. iNtrodUctioN

United Nations bodies working in countries around the world are expected to ‘deliver as one United Nations’ under the terms of the Secretary-General’s High-Level Panel on UN system-wide coherence in the areas of development, humanitarian assistance and environment. (November 2006). The recommendations are based on five pillars—One Leader, One Programme, One Budgetary Framework, One Communications Strategy, and where appropriate One Office. This review looks at how UN-Habitat fits in with the One UN process in six countries and how it can make itself more effective as part of the One UN team. Requested by the UN General Assembly at the behest of Member States, this evaluation was conducted March-June 2011 by two independent experts, Mr. Mathias Hundsalz and Mr. Antonio Yachan.

Its aim is to determine the extent of UN-Habitat’s participation when it comes to delivering as one. It also seeks to derive lessons learned, identify and assess strengths, challenges and opportunities, as well as to offer recommendations for a more effective participation. It also offers a clearer understanding of the effects and potential of the ‘Delivering as One’ (DaO) idea for UN-Habitat.

Objectives of the review include:

• An evaluation and recommendations on strategic, planning, managerial, operational and monitoring/reporting processes, mechanisms and human/financial resources for more effective and efficient participation of UN-Habitat at global and national levels;

• An assessment of the value added of the One UN process for UN-Habitat in the six participating countries, including the integration of the agency into this process; and

• A qualitative assessment of the significance of UN-Habitat’s support to the One UN reform agenda.

ii. metHodologY

This review used three data collection methods:

(a) A review of existing documentation, including: the report of the High Level Panel on UN System Wide Coherence; other UN DaO evaluations; UN-Habitat strategic and policy documentation such as the UN-Habitat Medium-Term Strategic Institutional Plan (MTSIP), policy and strategy papers covering the Enhanced Normative and Operational Framework (ENOF), country reports such as the Habitat Country Programme Documents

Improved residential housing in Cape Verde © UN-Habitat

2 review of UN-Habitat’s ParticiPatioN iN tHe deliveriNg as oNe UN iNitiative

(HCPD); annual reports of Country Programme Managers; and the September 2010 evaluation;

(b) Field visits to Mozambique, Pakistan, Rwanda, and Vietnam to gather primary information through interviews and obtain relevant documentation; and

(c) Interviews at Headquarters and UN-Habitat Regional Offices relevant to the six pilot DaO countries.

iii. KeY fiNdiNgs

UN-Habitat is currently active in six of the eight pilot DaO countries: Cape Verde, Mozambique, Pakistan, Rwanda, Tanzania and Vietnam (and has no presence in Albania and Uruguay). Habitat Country Programme Managers have taken the lead in the time-demanding and complex tasks of DaO planning and implementation. They have made commendable efforts. Indeed, they have demonstrated the competency and comparative advantage of UN-Habitat in a highly competitive environment with resident and non-resident UN agencies. This has also served to raise the profile of the UN-Habitat mandate, resulting in improved recognition from United Nations agencies and Governments. The country programmes, in general, have expanded activities and staff financed from DaO funds.

The ‘Delivering as One’ approach has changed the way country offices are representing the agency, becoming fully participative in the new One UN approach. However, some UN-Habitat staff appear to consider the DaO approach as a modality of implementation applicable to UN-Habitat’s Regional and Technical Cooperation Division only. This misunderstanding of a global change in the UN system is affecting the agency as a whole, particularly regarding its future focus on country activities.

Funding of UN-Habitat country activities from core and DaO sources is currently through divisions and/or projects, diluting the contributions of the agency in the One UN Fund and Government counterparts. UN-Habitat funding would be more useful if it were consolidated to establish

complete agency country budgets, under a single accounting system. This will require revision of UN-Habitat programming to enrich the whole project cycle at country level, by simplifying the programming, approval and reporting exercise and reducing the number of required documents.

The Governments are requesting the UN system of agencies to concentrate more on policy, strategies and capacity building. Further, they have asked UN agencies for new and innovative proposals that can add value to development, even as DaO funds are likely reduce.

Field staff, though qualified, have inadequate capacity to respond to new requests without the support from UN-Habitat Headquarters, which up to now has been limited to the former Regional and Technical Cooperation Division. There are no significant inputs from the other programme divisions.

The One UN Fund has proved to be an incentive for UN agencies to work together, in particular the specialised agencies, encouraging a coherent and holistic approach to planning and programming which plays to the strengths of each participating agency.

Headquarters has not adapted its working system and structure as One UN-Habitat. The Regional Offices are also limited—they lack balanced normative, operational and managerial tasks. An agency-wide policy, programming and implementation modality is required, with a common and coherent strategy and programme focus, common management practices, pooled country budgets, unified financial and substantive reporting, and strengthened human resource support from all programme divisions.

v. coNclUsioNs

country level conclusions

UN-Habitat activities undertaken and financed in DaO countries are important. Staff are committed and have delivered results recognised by the Governments. However, looking at the country needs and priorities, and UN-Habitat’s mandate from a wider perspective, it is possible that other


Without common and unified administrative, budgetary, accounting and reporting procedures at country level, UN-Habitat country programmes will remain fragmented and inadequately recognized by the DaO reform process. Country Programme Managers must work to overcome current fragmented procedures which negatively affect UN-Habitat participation in the DaO reform process.

conclusions for Headquarters and regional offices

Considering increasing competition among United Nations agencies to place their mandate on DaO priority interventions and on DaO funds, UN-Habitat advocacy to position the urban agenda is becoming extremely important. Establishment of National Urbanisation Committees or National Urban Forums, with membership drawn from the Government, civil society groups and the private sector is urgent.

The DaO reform process has created considerable demand on UN-Habitat’s way of doing business as part of the United Nations system. This is especially because there is no DaO officer at Headquarters to coordinate and raise awareness, monitor DaO development and provide assistance to DaO countries on the wide scope of implications of the United Nations DaO reform process. This practice has been adopted by other UN Headquarters, and resident agencies at field level have also one staff dedicated to DaO coordination and monitoring.

It is necessary for UN-Habitat to revise the whole project cycle, simplifying programming, approval and reporting exercise, and reducing the number of required documents. This would improve interaction between field and Headquarters, and at Headquarters it will speed up response on technical and administrative aspects.

Regional Offices should be gradually restructured and expanded to become fully fledged regional arms of UN-Habitat as a whole, with balanced normative, operational and managerial tasks. They should also become capable of providing programmatic and administrative support to the scope of operational and normative activities at regional level.

interventions at policy and strategy levels could have had a greater impact.

The main strategy of the One UN Programme under the reform process is to set up joint programming of agency inputs (resources and activities) at Headquarters and country-level to achieve stated and agreed upon results. Effective participation of UN-Habitat in joint programming has the potential to enhance its visibility and sharpen its comparative advantage.

The performance of Country Programme Managers in DaO countries has been satisfactory. To maintain the momentum requires stronger participation, streamlined from Headquarters providing new and updated know-how on UN-Habitat mandated topics and strengthening field staff to better respond to the increasing demand.

Country Programme Managers need some degree of delegated authority and seed funds from Headquarters core resources to better fill the current gap in UN-Habitat DaO process for conducting assessments, studies, workshops, advocacy campaigns, media announcements and other upcoming issues under the UN-Habitat mandate that can justify being included in the One UN country plan.

Funding of UN-Habitat country activities from different sources (i.e., Multi-donor Trust Fund, Foundation earmarked and non-earmarked, global programmes, etc.) need to be consolidated into a complete UN-Habitat country budget, under a single accounting system. Effective participation in country level DaO process would require a critical mass of funds and human resources.

There is tendency among donors to shift their overseas aid less to the Multi-donor Trust Fund in favour of funding global programmes (e.g., the Global Environment Facility (GEF) or HIV/AIDS) and back to earmarked agency funding. UN-Habitat country programmes therefore need to increase efforts in mobilising additional funds, and open other funding sources such as Government cost-sharing (e.g., Vietnam) or corporate sources. If not, the agency’s participation in joint programming under the DaO process will not be sustainable.


The presence of UN-Habitat Headquarters at field level and other strategic positions is still wanting, being less visible at key United Nations country team and Government meetings. The presence of Headquarters is also weak in the United Nations Development Group in New York and other venues where key DaO decisions in relation to policies, priorities and distribution of funds are taken.

UN-Habitat Headquarters will need a ‘two-track’ support system to pilot and ‘self-start’ the DaO reform process. One track would include countries with well-established UN-Habitat teams, who are raising the agency’s visibility in the United Nations Country Team and its working groups, and where there is potential for including additional component in the joint programming and obtaining increased allocation of One UN funds. The second track would include countries with limited presence of Country Programme Manager or country team, supporting with programmatic and timely interventions from Regional Offices in the UNCT and its working groups, building up the agency intervention in the joint programming and in the DaO process.

UN-Habitat Headquarters should systematise DaO experience through the HSOs in Regional Offices capitalising on information from DaO countries. That information should be made available to staff in different divisions at Headquarters and also among pilot DaO countries and ‘self-started’ DaO countries to encourage learning for better participation in DaO planning and implementation.

UN-Habitat Headquarters should streamline its structure and working modality to become a One UN-Habitat. This would involve complementing the divisions’ tasks in a way that could reach the field with improved know-how, building the capacity of field staff in a systematic way. The Headquarters, especially the Global Division should through field missions assist DaO planning and advocating in UN and Government meetings; presenting strategic and innovative approaches on UN-Habitat interventions. Headquarters presence also reinforces the understanding that behind the field team there is a whole agency supporting.

vi. lessoNs learNed

The administration and finance procedures in UN-Habitat Headquarters have maintained the status quo—they have not introduced any specific measures in relation to the ‘pilot DaO countries’. The only difference is the annual finance report, which is done on-line using the DaO template and is similar to the trust fund template.

The new requirements of DaO in pilot and ‘self-started’ countries justify increased level of decentralisation and delegation of authority to regional and country offices. This implies:

(a) Rationalizing roles, responsibilities and accountabilities between Headquarters, regional and field offices;

(b) Transferring functions to the regional and country offices;

(c) Downshifting responsibilities to regional and country office and create more space for national accountability and ownership;

(d) Increasing the human resource capacity to provide required technical, policy and strategic assistance at country level; and

(e) Simplifying procedures, monitoring and reporting.

In order to minimise the cut off on UN-Habitat allocations for DaO components, it would be important to strategize the use of available core funding from Headquarters, and to initiate a fundraising so as to provide seed funds for UN-Habitat activities in DaO countries, and for building on the leverage of larger amounts of DaO funds.

Additional human and financial resources from Headquarters would be necessary at least during the pilot phase to promote participation of UN-Habitat in the DaO reform process. However, in some countries (e.g., Pakistan), AOS from post disaster reconstruction programmes can be utilized to subsidize the increased workload of DaO.

Regarding core funding, it would be ideal if a forecast could be done for DaO countries in order to facilitate planning and negotiation at


field level. It would also be good if core funding allocated to projects could reach the country aligned with the DaO plan but coordinated from Headquarters with the DaO mechanisms of implementation.

vii. KeY recommeNdatioNs

country level recommendations

• The present status of a UN-Habitat country team as a non-resident (or resident agency depending on the perception of the UN Resident Coordinator) should be kept. There is no need to ‘upgrade’ the status of the programme manager to international, except for countries with large development or humanitarian programmes.

• In countries (e.g., Mozambique, Pakistan, Rwanda and Vietnam) where the range of functions of the programme manager has increased following the DaO reform, and where UN-Habitat is implementing a reasonable portfolio, the field offices should have at least two additional non-project staff with relevant specialisations and in line with national priorities.

• UN-Habitat should create National Habitat Committees or National Habitat Forums for raising and maintaining the level of advocacy and awareness on its competence and comparative advantage in the DaO countries. The objectives of the Participatory Slum Upgrading Programme (PSUP) fits perfectly well on this aspect and the project office should ensure that all pilot, as well as ‘self-started’ DaO countries are considered in the programme.

recommendations for Headquarters and regional offices

• UN-Habitat should sharpen its recently published policy papers on the MTSIP focus areas for use by the working UN Country Teams in joint programming. Further, there is need to add country-specific strategies for use by the Country Programme Manager and teams to sharpen the agency’s competence profile.

• The current fragmented management practices in UN-Habitat should be reviewed to enable it to ‘deliver as one’ at country level: one budget, one coordinator and one set of management practices in line with DaO guidelines for pilot and ‘self-started’ countries. This will require unified management and programme support structure at Headquarters to guide and coordinate the agency’s interventions in the DaO countries, and align them with the efforts of the UN system of agencies.

• UN-Habitat Headquarters, through PSD and UNON should clarify with UNDP how recruitments and procurements will be improved for projects implemented for UN-Habitat at country level, eliminating the duplication on the steps being followed.

• Within the One UN country planning documents (i.e., United Nations Development Assistance Framework, UNDAP, etc.) UN-Habitat should ensure that its component is coherent, structured and coordinated, consolidating all agency activities and budgets to demonstrate a complete profile of UN-Habitat competencies and comparative advantages to the DaO joint programming process.


1.1 iNtrodUctioN

This is a review of UN-Habitat’s participation in the ‘Delivering as One’ (DaO) initiative in pilot countries of Cape Verde, Mozambique, Pakistan, Rwanda, Tanzania and Vietnam. The DaO is an approach following the recommendations contained in the Secretary-General’s High-Level Panel on UN-system-wide coherence in the areas of development, humanitarian assistance and environment (November 2006). The recommendations build on five pillars: One Leader, One Programme, One Budgetary Framework, ‘One Communication Strategy’ and where appropriate One Office. Under these pillars, DaO approach is expected to create system-wide capacity to coherently addressing cross-cutting issues such as sustainable development, poverty reduction, gender equality and human rights, inclusively, at country level.

The review covers the current opportunities and challenges of UN-Habitat’s participation in the DaO, and makes recommendations for a more rational, coherent and effective participation. It was requested by the UN General Assembly, for consideration by Member States, and conducted by two independent consultants: Mr. Mathias Hundsalz and Mr. Antonio Yachan during the

period from March to June 2011 (Annex I: Terms of Reference).

1.2 bacKgroUNd

Following the 2005 World Summit, a High-Level Panel on System-wide Coherence recommended the DaO approach to the Secretary-General, when addressing the key UN mandates of development, humanitarian assistance and environment (November 2006). In response, UN Country Teams (UNCT) were established between the agencies with the expectation of a strengthened and aligned UN system which would improve collaboration with member states in the joint effort of making real progress towards the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

Responding to a request by the Secretary-General to the General Assembly, in early 2007 a number of Governments volunteered to have the DaO approach tested in their countries: Albania, Cape Verde, Mozambique, Pakistan, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uruguay and Vietnam. For this purpose participating pilot countries have carried out the ‘evaluability study’ (2007-2008), the ‘stocktaking exercise’ (2007-2008) and the ‘country-led evaluations’ (2009-2010). Pakistan is expected to do that

1. InTRoDuCTIon anD baCKGRounD

Urban transport in Vietnam © UN-Habitat


in 2011. Coordinated by the UN Development Group (UNDG), and with the help of the current independent evaluation, experiences from these pilot countries shall be reviewed at the next UN General Assembly, as an input to intergovernmental consultations on the future of DaO.

The One UN also built on the Paris Declaration adopted in September 2005 that called for greater harmonization and simplification of development aid and increased effectiveness. It also recognized the need for more national ownership of the development programmes and alignment with national development goals. The Accra Agenda for Action reaffirmed these intentions in 2008 by adopting a declaration intended to:

(a) Strengthen country ownership over development;

(b) Building more effective and inclusive partnerships for development; and

(c) Delivering and accounting for development results.

UN-Habitat participated actively (through its New York Office) in the assessments which were conducted by the UNDG in 2007 and 2008. This assessment focused on:

(a) Design and progress of the DaO process to improve coherent programming;

(b) Identification of modalities for monitoring and evaluation, such as indicators, baselines and targets for measuring results; and

(c) Involvement of stakeholders, adequate use of resources, national ownership, or forms of external aid.

As a result of the evaluability assessment, a number of critical aspects were identified which impact on meeting the above overall DaO expectations. Among these aspects are the needs to:

• Harmonize strategies in the different countries to move from United Nations Development Assistance Framework coordination principles to DaO joint programming;

• Ensure national ownership and participation of all partners;

• Align DaO with other external development partners, such as development banks;

• Delegate more authority from agency Headquarters to UN country offices;

• Harmonize agency budgeting procedures and management practices;

• Define common result-oriented indicators for monitoring and evaluation;

• Enhance the predictability and adequacy of (non-earmarked) contributions to the DaO UN Fund from bilateral and multilateral donors;

• Harmonize accounting and reporting procedures; and

• Look for understanding on expected reduction of overhead costs for use in programming.

At the tripartite meeting hosted by the Government of Vietnam in June 2010, the emerging findings and conclusions from the country-led evaluations were discussed amongst the pilot countries. This was the third meeting organized by the Governments who had volunteered to develop and implement DaO. As in earlier meetings (held in Maputo in 2008 and in Kigali in 2009), the host Government was supported by the UN Department for Economic and Social Affairs (DESA) and the Development Operations Coordination Office (DOCO).

The experiences and lessons learned from the meetings in Maputo, Kigali and Vietnam include:

• Participants acknowledge that while there was no blueprint for ‘Delivering as One’ the pioneering efforts of the pilot countries have been crystallized into an approach under the principle of ‘No-One-Size-Fits-All’ which has resulted in a certain degree of diversity of experiences and lessons learned, but at the same time has shown a number of common elements across the countries.

• Participants stress that the UN organizations are called upon to provide support to capacity development in programme countries, including normative and policy advice in achieving poverty eradication, sustained economic growth and sustainable development.

• The ‘Delivering as One’ approach has provided benefits for achieving better development results through increased national leadership


and ownership in the development partnership with the UN system. In all pilot countries, the role and contribution of the UN system is better integrated in national development processes and the UN system has become more responsive to national needs and priorities.

• The contribution of agencies is not determined by the residency status, but rather by the contribution that they can make to the development priorities. Increasingly non-resident agencies (NRA) have contributed with their specialized expertise in joint programming and policy dialogue which has allowed the UN development system to draw upon the normative strength of the UN system.

• On the country-led evaluations and the results obtained was noted:

(a) The quality of the country-led evaluations was fairly uneven, with Vietnam being of highest quality in terms of following the earlier on agreed Terms of Reference (TOR), which was partly attributed to the tight schedule placed on countries to complete their reports before the Hanoi conference;

(b) The relationship between findings, conclusions and recommendations remained weak; and

(c) Not enough attention was given in the reports to contributions made to development results at country level, including the achievement of internationally agreed development aims under the MDGs.

• Participants of the pilot countries noted with concern that there are still significant funding gaps in the implementation of One UN Programmes and called upon donors and other countries in a position to provide additional, predictable and multi-year contributions.

• Participants also noted that:

(a) UN agencies should decentralise roles and responsibilities to the country office;

(b) Small agencies should be strategically consolidated at country level;

(c) The UN silos have started to erode and new levels of synergies emerged; and

(d) Programme alignment improved and the UN capacity to address multi-sectoral development programme was tested.

It is important to mention, that based on the experience of pilot countries, an increasing number of ‘self-starters’, although not officially designated as ‘pilot countries’, are in processes of adopting the concept of One UN, or aspects of it, through increased efforts of coordinating the scope of agency programmes, and strengthening their alignment with national development priorities. Among the ‘self-starters’ are Bhutan, Kiribati, Laos, Maldives, Mongolia, Papua New Guinea and Philippines in Asia and the Pacific Region; and Benin, Botswana, Comoros, Ethiopia, Liberia, Lesotho, Malawi, Namibia and Zimbabwe in the Africa Region. Such efforts are usually built upon experiences with the United Nations Development Assistance Framework. UN-Habitat is currently active in Cape Verde, Mozambique, Pakistan, Rwanda, Tanzania and Vietnam, with projects funded through and implemented under the DaO umbrella, as well as projects directly funded through UN-Habitat core funds.

So far, the DaO participation of UN-Habitat in the pilot countries has been ensured by Habitat Programme Managers and their teams, and within the framework of promoting the implementation of UN-Habitat’s mandate at the level of interacting with national partners and coordinating with UN agencies. Habitat country teams who have been in existence for about 10 years, are assigned key roles in preparing country plans in the form of Habitat Country Programme Documents (HCPDs) on the basis of national priorities and UN-Habitat mandate, and align them with UN system wide coordination processes, such as UNDAF and the DaO process. The HCDPs find their rationale in UN-Habitat’s Medium-Term Strategic and Institutional Plan (MTSIP) 2008-2013, which assigns them (and the Country Programme Managers) a strategic role


for ‘preparing and implementing an enhanced normative and operational framework (ENOF) to enable UN-Habitat play a leadership and catalytic role in promoting sustainable urbanization in at least 30 countries by 2013’.

1.3 obJectives aNd relevaNce of dao for UN-Habitat

The review, subject of this consultancy, will focus on the current challenges and opportunities of UN-Habitat’s participation in the DaO. The objective of the review is to determine the extent of UN-Habitat’s participation; filter lessons learned; identify and assess strengths, challenges and opportunities; and make recommendations for a more effective participation. Among other issues, the review will generate better understanding of the effects and potential of the DaO for UN-Habitat.

The relevance of UN-Habitat’s participation in the DaO process is related to the role and contribution that the agency can provide to the UN system’s policy and programme support to member states and their national development priorities. This is of particular importance due to the fact that UN-Habitat is a specialized Non-resident Agency whose urban development mandates are generally recognized among national Governments’ development priorities.

Specifically, this review focuses on the current challenges and opportunities of UN-Habitat’s participation in the DaO process, with the objective of providing a detailed information base on what would be needed to participate more effectively. The review includes:

• An evaluation and recommendations concerning strategic, planning, managerial, operational and monitoring/reporting processes, mechanisms and human/financial resources for more effective and efficient participation of UN-Habitat at both the global and national levels.

• An assessment of the value added of the One UN process for UN-Habitat in the six participating countries, including the integration of the agency into this process.

• A qualitative assessment of the significance of

UN-Habitat’s support to the One UN reform agenda.

According to the UNDG work plan for 2010-2011, the following outcomes of the DaO-guided reform process have been formulated:

• Outcome 1: Accelerated national achievement of MDGs/IADGs;

• Outcome 2: Strengthened UN coherence and coordination at country level; and

• Outcome 3: UN Development system more effectively deploys knowledge and know-how. It should be recalled here that the expected administrative and cost benefits for a DaO UN system include:

(a) Synergies of interagency programming and implementation;

(b) Reduction of overlaps and duplication;

(c) Achievements of economies of scale; and

(d) Reduction of transaction costs for development activities.

Consequently, the challenges, opportunities and prospects of UN-Habitat participating in the DaO system-wide initiative will have to be assessed under those aspects, both at Headquarters and Regional Office levels, as well as at country levels. The scope of this consultancy does not include a full assessment of these issues which are fundamental to the prospects of the agency’s participation in the DaO reform process at country level, and can only raise them with recommendations for organizational reform. The expected DaO results include:

• Reduction of costs by minimizing duplication and overlap of efforts following use of common services for reducing overheads and increasing value for money in service delivery.

• Better alignment of UN agency competencies with national development priorities.

• Better use of comparative advantages, based on the diversity of mandates and types of intervention of UN agencies.

• Application of a result-oriented approach to joint programming by securing multi-year resources from donor trust funds and agency core contributions.


• Reduction of fragmentation and competition among UN agencies in fund-raising, thereby reducing donor-driven agency programmes.

1.4 oUtliNe of tHe rePort

After this introduction and background (Chapter 1), Chapter 2 describes the evaluation

methodology and scope. Chapter 3 presents the summary on the main findings from each pilot ‘DaO’ country while Chapter 4 presents challenges and opportunities for UN-Habitat participation in the DaO process. Chapter 5 consolidates conclusions, lessons learned and recommendations of the review.


2.1 data collectioN metHods

In order to address the purpose and objective of this consultancy, the following methods were used:

(a) literature review—a desk study of documentation—was conducted of (including, but not limited to) DaO documents and reports; DaO evaluations already undertaken (evaluability reports, stocktaking reports, country-led evaluation reports, progress reports, and others); country UN documents such as United Nations Development Assistance Framework, DaO joint programme, assessments and strategies; UN-Habitat country documents such as Habitat Country Programme Document (HCPD), DaO project documents, Country Programme Manager reports; and UN-Habitat policy documents such as MTSIP, ENOF and strategic papers.

(b) guided interviews were used during field missions to collect primary data from UN-Habitat staff in country offices, and national stakeholders in selected pilot DaO countries of Mozambique, Rwanda, Tanzania and Vietnam. The interviews involved, among others, the Resident Coordinator and relevant UN country team members; focal

points from participating UN agencies, UN-Habitat national counterparts; other national UN-Habitat partners which participated in planning and implementing DaO projects; civil society organizations and resident donors that contributed to One UN Fund.

(c) distant consultations were used for Cape Verde and Pakistan, non-visited pilot DaO countries, and done through administration of e-questionnaires and e-mail communication with UN-Habitat staff and other country stakeholders as was found necessary.

(d) face-to-face discussions were held using semi structured questions with staff from the Regional Office for Africa and the Arab States and the Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific, relevant Divisions at Headquarters for internal UN-Habitat DaO review. This review assessed the level of understanding of the DaO initiative seeking views and comments for better UN-Habitat DaO involvement. It focused on:

• Assessing substantive and global UN-Habitat policies and strategies (i.e, MTSIP), its relation to the DaO initiative and the ways it related to present practice in pilot countries;

2. ReVIeW MeTHoDoloGY anD sCoPe

Reconstruction site in Pakistan © UN-Habitat


• Assessing the value of interdivisional teamwork (ENOF) and its potential support to planning and implementation of DaO joint programmes;

• Assessing the level of administrative and financial support required from Headquarters to strengthen the delivery efficiency in DaO projects jointly implemented with other UN agencies; and

• Assessing the role of information, documentation, monitoring and evaluation at Headquarters and Regional Offices to support UN-Habitat team in DaO countries.

(e) consultations were held with Regional Offices and the Headquarters staff for feedback based on a presentation on findings and recommendations of the first draft report. The presentation was complemented with consultations via e-mails sent to Country Programme Managers in pilot DaO country offices seeking for comments on the first draft.

2.2 data aNalYsis

The different data were processed by filtration and ordering, and by triangulation and verification with data from other data sources to arrive at the findings, and draw conclusions and recommendations.

2.3 scoPe

The methodology was applied to help understand UN-Habitat participation on the DaO, and for that reason, the study composed of the following three phases:

(a) Preparatory Phase (Phase i): This phase consisted of a desk review of available secondary sources of information including DaO documentation and previous DaO evaluations as well as UN-Habitat reports on DaO projects and achievements.

This phase had the following main activities:

• Understand the evaluation tasks and prepare the inception report; and

• Collect background information and carry out

a desk review.

(b) data collection and analysis Phase (Phase ii): This phase was undertaken through:

(a) Field visits to Mozambique, Rwanda, Tanzania and Vietnam for collecting data from primary sources, including UN-Habitat field staff and stakeholders;

(b) Distant consultation to Cape Verde and Pakistan through e-mails and questionnaires with UN-Habitat field offices and DaO stakeholders; and

(c) Meetings with UN-Habitat staff in Regional Offices (ie., ROAAS and ROAP) and in Headquarters to assess the level of understanding of the DaO initiative, identify aspects which needed to be addressed and evaluate the support provided by Regional Offices and Headquarters to the DaO implementation at country level (Annex II: Interviewed Persons).

Phase II had the following main activities:

• Undertake country visits and conduct interviews;

• Arrange and conduct distant country consultations; and

• Carry out internal consultations in Regional Offices and in UN-Habitat Headquarters.

(c) reporting Phase (Phase iii): This phase included the preparation of a draft report from the desk review and the data collected from different sources and, production of PowerPoint for presentation of the findings, conclusions and recommendations. The draft report was presented in a consultative session with ROAAS and Headquarters staff seeking for comments and recommendations. The draft report was also discussed with UN-Habitat field staff who contributed with comments. The final report incorporated the recommendations from the consultative session at the Headquarters, and from UN-Habitat field staff at country level. This phase had the following main activities:

• Undertake data analysis and prepare first


draft report;

• Prepare PowerPoint presentation;

• Present draft report and arrange internal discussion; and

• Incorporate recommended changes into the present (final) report.

2.4 maNagemeNt of tHe review Process

This review was conducted by two independent consultants, Mr. Mathias Hundsalz and Mr. Antonio Yachan during the period, March to June 2011, in close consultation with UN-Habitat.

The RTCD managed the administrative and logistical components of the review while the Monitoring and Evaluation Unit managed the quality of the review report, including ensuring that the terms of reference conform to UN-Habitat evaluation requirements, and made comments on the draft and final reports.


This section is a summary on the findings of DaO process in pilot countries. Details on findings for each of the six countries where UN-Habitat is currently active in the DaO process are presented in Annex III.

3.1 caPe verde

The UN-Habitat office in Cape Verde was created in 2009, after the DaO was initiated, recruiting a country coordinator supported by the Country Programme Manager. The country coordinator is based in Cape Verde and participates in DaO meetings as well as works together with national partners on the planning and implementation of the projects. The Country Programme Manager, who is also the Country Programme Manager for Senegal, assisted in key meetings in Cape Verde providing the necessary support from Dakar.

In Cape Verde, 20 UN agencies are collaborating in the DaO (i.e., six resident and 14 non-resident agencies) and in a participatory way have prepared the OneUN Programme in Cape Verde. The programme is divided into four thematic areas:

• Good governance;

• Promotion of growth and economic opportunities;

• Environment, energy, disasters, prevention and response; and

• Human capital and social protection.

The gender component is a cross-cutting aspect mainstreamed in most interventions. The total estimated budget for the OneUN Programme was USD 70.3 million; donor contribution reached USD 40.8 million.

The entry point of UN-Habitat in Cape Verde was the Participatory Slum Upgrading Programme (PSUP) which is financed by UN-Habitat with contribution from the European Commission. This entry point allowed UN-Habitat access to the One UN Programme with an urban governance project financed by the DaO. At present, UN-Habitat is implementing activities for a total of USD 588,500 including USD 88,500 from the PSUP project and USD 500,000 from DaO funds under the ‘Local Urban Development Programme in the framework of the One UN in Cape Verde’. This case is a good example where core funds (from PSUP programme) in a relatively small amount enabled UN-Habitat to implement activities under DaO with considerable larger funds.

The Government of Cape Verde has been working on an integrated urban policy and operational

3. KeY fInDInGs on un-HabITaT PaRTICIPaTIon In THe Dao PRoCess In THe PIloT CounTRIes

Maputo Island, Mozambique © UN-Habitat/Alain Grimard


strategy which will act as a guide for better living conditions in the cities. Accordingly, the Government of Cape Verde in partnership with UN-Habitat intends to produce this urban policy and the respective strategy in the next cycle of the UNDAF 2012-2016, where it is already included. This intervention is in line with the focus that the Government of Cape Verde is intending to give to the next DaO cycle, requesting less small projects and more substantive contribution from the UN where value could be added to the development process in the country. For UN-Habitat, with only one staff member in the field, to deal with policy and strategic aspects becomes a great challenge.

The DaO planning exercise with Government counterparts and UN agencies facilitated the dialogue and the recognition of UN-Habitat mandate strengthening the working relations with the Resident Coordinator office and sister agencies. Taking advantage of this situation, UN-Habitat could draw a plan covering additional urban aspects, for what will further advocate the agency mandate and capability.

Concerning increasing UN-Habitat capacity in Cape Verde, it would be important to strengthen the local office investing on its human resources by upgrading and enlarging staff. The workload on programmatic and substantive aspects, the time spent on meetings and the perspectives on the new United Nations Development Assistance Framework cycle justifies this. Improvements on the procurement and recruitment process are also needed to speed implementation and reduce the administrative work in the field office.

3.2 moZambiQUe

UN-Habitat in Mozambique is implementing a portfolio of USD 7.3 million within the DaO approach, with USD 4.1 million coming from DaO funds and USD 3.2 million from bilateral or core funds from the agency. The field office has ten staff, with the Country Programme Manager being the only one financed from core funds. Although the number of staff seems large (compared to other countries) there are huge limitations on staff and resources at a time when it is necessary

to maintain the pace of bigger agencies, or it is intended to advocate for the agency mandate or negotiate larger funds to increase the volume under implementation.

The DaO in Mozambique has been operational since 2007; its first cycle is finalising in 2011. In planning and implementation DaO involves 24 UN agencies (nine resident, seven non-resident with office and staff in-country and eight covered from abroad). This first cycle has 13 joint programmes, with UN-Habitat collaborating in three programmes—environment mainstreaming, decentralisation and disaster risk reduction.

The strength of UN-Habitat in DaO is on its specific mandate, which is not available in other UN agencies. The planning exercise is very demanding on policy aspects and on technical knowhow and the Country Programme Manager in the UNCT and in meetings with the Government needs to convince UN agencies and ministries on the identified priorities and on innovative and feasible solutions in order to be considered as a priority in the DaO plan. Although the voice of the Country Programme Manager in planning and decision taking meetings is equally considered, it is less power than the voices of resident agencies. Although behind the Country Programme Manager is a full agency with normative and operational divisions, the required support with updated normative and strategic information does not reach the field. It is only with joint Headquarters, RTCD and field office interventions, that the agency will properly advocate for its mandate in a continuous and more prominent way in the DaO plan and DaO funding, reinforcing present areas of intervention and opening new ones within the mandate and needs in country.

The United Nations Development Assistance Framework 2012-2015 was recently approved and is the result of a highly participatory planning process involving the Government of Mozambique and the UN. The United Nations Development Assistance Framework was based on the Action Plan for Poverty Reduction (PARP) for 2011-2014 as well as the country-led DaO evaluation done


in 2010. The new United Nations Development Assistance Framework is organized around three focus areas:

(a) Economic: aimed at diminishing the economic disparities, improving productive capacities, and reducing vulnerability to natural disasters;

(b) Social: aimed at reducing inequality of access to services for vulnerable groups; and

(c) Governance: deepening democracy and improving governance at the local level. For the Government of Mozambique, the value of the DaO programme, compared to gains from other sources of support, is the neutral position of the UN, the value of the technical expertise of agencies and the global advice.

To implement United Nations Development Assistance Framework 2012-2015, will require a total budget of USD 735 million out of which 20 per cent is expected to be covered from DaO funds, 25 per cent from regular resources (from UN agencies) and the difference from other bilateral arrangements. UN-Habitat is included in the new United Nations Development Assistance Framework with a total of USD 10 million from DaO funds.

Obtaining DaO funds is very competitive. On the one hand are small NRAs that want to initiate or increase their presence in the country. On the other hand are the big resident agencies that have a large number of technical staff and consolidated programmes and do not want to lose their predominance. In the first DaO cycle, UN-Habitat was able to leverage a reasonable proportion of funds from DaO due to:

(a) Good performance obtained in-country on previously implemented projects;

(b) Considerable number of project staff already on board; and

(c) Ability to contribute non-DaO funds to the DaO joint programmes.

For the second DaO cycle, where UN-Habitat aims to considerably increase participation, its presence in the field and the contribution of core funds will play an important role.

UN-Habitat implementation in terms of disbursement is on track with approximately 80 per cent of the DaO funds committed. However, it is important to mention that delays on recruitments and procurements are hampering field work. The most important delays are inside of UNDP office that after receiving the authorisations from UNON, the authorisation is put on hold for UNDP to re-initiate the full recruitment or procurement process based on its local system.

3.3 PaKistaN

The One UN Plan for Pakistan is a follow-up to the experiences with the country’s United Nations Development Assistance Framework which was extended to 2010 in order to align it with Pakistan’s National Development Plan, in terms of timing and matching national priorities with the capacities of the UN system.

Based on its mandate, experience and capacity to deliver, UN-Habitat participated actively in the formulation of four joint programmes, under the umbrella of the United Nations Country Team:

• Environment, with several outcomes addressing human settlement related issues;

• Disaster risk management, with several outcomes addressing human settlements related issues;

• Health and Population (to a very limited extent, jointly with UNFPA); and

• Education (to a very limited extent, jointly with UNESCO).

The One UN Plan in Pakistan is funded through a combination of earmarked and non-earmarked funding from donors under the Multi Donor Trust Fund (MDTF), as well as from agency core funds (except UN-Habitat). Approximately, ten per cent of the overall One UN budget has funding from MDTF and several agencies kept their own programmes rather than integrate them into the One UN Plan. Further, many donors (and agencies) now focus their funding on post disaster programmes of recovery and rehabilitation, rather than contribute to the One UN Fund. There is an overall shortfall of funding for the current One UN Plan.


Funds available to UN-Habitat under the One UN Plan total USD 3.6 million for the implementation of five projects under the overall Joint Programmes:

• Water and Sanitation improvement in informal settlements through gender mainstreaming and empowerment of local authority;

• One UN Disaster Management Programme Pakistan;

• One UN Joint Programme on environment—sustainable urbanization and energy conservation;

• Geographic Information Systems (GIS)—Capacity building for national population census; and

• Improvement of 29 school buildings in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

In addition, UN-Habitat provides own funding to project activities from earmarked global programmes on water and sanitation, and on land and on youth activities, some of which are contracted to NGOs. These project activities are not coordinated by the Country Programme Manager and are not part of the One UN Plan, but are administered directly by respective programme Divisions at the Headquarters in Nairobi.

By far most UN-Habitat’s activities in Pakistan, however, are concentrated on recovery and rehabilitation, following the destruction of rural housing and rural infrastructure as a result of the earthquake of 2005, the displacement of families affected by the war on terror, and more recently the flooding disasters, funded by the Central Emergency Response Fund and direct earmarked donor funding outside the Multi Donor Trust Fund for development activities. In fact, only four per cent of UN-Habitat’s current activities in Pakistan are funded through the One UN Plan under Multi Donor Trust Fund.

The United Nations Country Team activities focus almost exclusively on post-disaster recovery, reconstruction and rehabilitation through humanitarian assistance funds, while joint programmes under the One UN Plan are receiving much less attention. As a result, there is need for United Nations Country Team with a UN Resident

Coordinator, as well as a UN Humanitarian Country Team, with a UN Humanitarian Coordinator.

The presence of UN-Habitat in Pakistan is assured through a national team under the overall coordination of an international Country Programme Manager. The national team includes two national experts who are fully absorbed by the DaO process at the level of United Nations Country Team; participation at this level is required in a good number of meetings on policy, joint programme and administrative matters of harmonized management and accounting practices. The mandate, competence and comparative advantage of UN-Habitat is well recognized, largely due to its track record with post disaster recovery and reconstruction programmes. Therefore, UN-Habitat works closely with the line Ministries of Construction and Housing, and the Ministry of Environment, as well as with the Earthquake Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Authority (ERRA) of the Prime Minister’s Office, later transformed into the National Disaster Management Agency.

UN-Habitat’s participation in the Pakistan DaO process is constrained by the limited core funding and staff resources, as well as by a fragile security environment as a result of political instability. The operational interventions are built around projects which bring in funds from donor countries in response to disasters, rather than resulting from consistent efforts on the basis of UN-Habitat’s mandate to strengthen the agency’s competitiveness and profile at the level of United Nations Country Team. UN-Habitat in Pakistan, as a project office, is faced with institutional and resource limitations in committing itself to long-term support and policy advice to Government and other partners in civil society. Its interventions rely on ad hoc and time-bound project delivery initiatives when addressing key themes of urbanization or climate change.

In a way, UN-Habitat’s post disaster recovery and reconstruction programmes subsidize the participation of the agency’s Country Programme Manager Office in the United Nations Country Team, which is not sustainable in strengthening


the agency’s capacity to participate in coordinated policy support and joint programming along the One UN Plan is the goal.

With a situation where donor funds in Pakistan being overwhelmingly directed towards humanitarian and peace-building activities of the UN system, the future of One UN Plan development activities through pooled and non-earmarked donor contributions remains seriously underfunded. This has a direct impact on UN-Habitat’s participation in the One UN Plan which is also in future likely to remain limited in terms of cost-effectiveness.

For UN-Habitat to play a recognized and effective role in the new One UN Plan, it needs to focus its participation in the DaO through:

(a) More advocacy and policy support and less on single project service delivery;

(b) Capacity development of civil society;

(c) Intervention through policy advice at the regional and local levels; and

(d) Disaster preparedness and humanitarian response.

3.4 rwaNda

UN-Habitat opened its country office in UNDP compound in July 2004. This office has one Country Programme Manager and eight staff, implementing in the past four years a portfolio of USD 2.25 million in the DaO programme in Rwanda.

One UN Programme in Rwanda ‘Common Operational Document 2008-2012’ was prepared by 20 UN agencies (nine resident and 11 non-resident agencies, including UN-Habitat). This is the programmatic document specifying how the UN in Rwanda will implement the United Nations Development Assistance Framework 2008-2012. The UNDAF is a response to the national needs and priorities outlined in the ‘Rwandan Government’s Economic Development and Poverty Reduction Strategy’ and the ‘Vision 2020’. The Common Operational Document is divided into five sectors: Governance; Health, population, HIV and nutrition; Education; Environment, and Sustainable growth and social protection; with

gender as a cross-cutting aspect. The Common Operational Document presents key activities by outcome and by agency and its implementation require a total of USD 487.6 million.

The Country Programme Manager is responsible for UN-Habitat’s planning. It is very challenging and often difficult to meet the requirements due to the number of meetings involved or because specific policy or technical knowledge is required on matters that fall under the agency’s purview. Advocacy on policy and strategic aspects to convince Government and other UN agencies on the importance of the UN-Habitat mandate and the relevance for the country plays a key role. If this is not well articulated, it can simply get ignored. Current strategic planning left out the Country Programme Manager. During the next planning cycle the Government indicated that UN should contribute more to policy and strategic aspects and less on project implementation.

Only one Non-Resident Agency (NRA) represents all the NRAs in planning and fundraising meetings with donors. These decisions taken by the Resident Coordinator at country level adds layers of difficulty to the planning and funding limiting the advocacy on UN-Habitat mandate that can be done by the staff in-country.

Approximately one third of the expected DaO funds in Rwanda have been obtained with reluctance from some donors to meet commitment or increase their contribution. This funding situation increases competition among agencies for available funds. Resident agencies with larger amounts of core funds and stronger presence seem to have better opportunity of getting funds than NRAs that lack strong presence and have limited core funds.

UN-Habitat Headquarters promised the Government of Rwanda core funds for project implementation on water and youth. In the case of water, a memorandum of understanding was signed for USD 1.12 million but the Headquarters provided only USD 180,000 in an Agreement of Cooperation before announcing that no more funds were available. On Youth, it was promised USD 200,000 from core funds, which


did not materialise. It is beyond the terms of this consultancy to study why this occurred, but some lessons can be drawn:

• Core funds exist in reasonable amount to involve the agency with core funds in the DaO and qualify for leveraging DaO funds implementing more significant projects, but this was not done.

• Trust on the agency is eroded and affect the efforts done by field staff with the Government and inside the One UN by promising funds to the Government and not materialising it.

• Better coordination between Headquarters and Regional Office should be established to work as One UN-Habitat in the field.

According to field staff, the main problem with UN-Habitat participation is the time taken for recruitment and procurement in the UNDP office. Delays in implementation affect beneficiaries, relations with Government and counterparts, reduce the delivery capacity of the agency and impede obtaining DaO funds due to non-utilisation of funds already allocated.

3.5 taNZaNia

In close collaboration with the Government of Tanzania and the donor countries (and coordinated by a tripartite agreement through the Joint Steering Committee), the United Nations Country Team formulated and adopted the present United Nations Development Assistance Plan (UNDAP 2011-2015) which is composed of three clusters with ten programme areas:

• Cluster 1: Economic Growth and Poverty Reduction (with a budget USD 180 million, i.e., 23 per cent).

• Cluster 2: Quality of Life and Social Well-Being (with a budget USD 323 million, i.e., 42 per cent).

• Cluster 3: Governance, Emergency and Disaster Response; Refugees (with a budget USD 270 million, i.e., 35 per cent).

The total budget for this period stands at USD 777 million, out of which USD 216 (28 per cent) is to be financed by donors through the One UN Fund, leaving the balance to be funded through agency

core funds and non-core funding mechanisms such as earmarked donor funds and global UN programmes.

The One UN Fund contribution to UNDAP 2011-2015 is financed from pooled contributions of seven donors (‘friends of the UN’). According to the UNRC office, there is a trend emerging among donors to revert to higher earmarked contributions to specific programme areas and/or ‘preferred’ agencies.

UN-Habitat participates in the Water, Sanitation and Health programme (WASH) under Cluster 2 of UNDAP, jointly with UNICEF, UNFPA and WHO. WASH is likely to get an allocation of approximately three per cent of the total One UN Fund for Tanzania, the smallest of the ten programme areas. The Country Programme Manager has been requested to specify the inputs of UN-Habitat (actions) to WASH, which will focus on water and sanitation (WatSan) for Zanzibar Water and Sanitation Authority (ZAWA) and for the Dar es Salaam Water and Sanitation Authority. The total budget will be approx. USD 3 million, out of which about USD 0.9 million is likely to come from the One UN Fund, the rest is expected from agency core funds. Actual allocation will be made on the basis of proposals for joint programmes with the other agencies. There is a likelihood of earmarked funding for the WASH programme area of UNDAP from Switzerland and The Netherlands.

The UNDAP 2011-2015 has no programme area nor specific activities on urbanization, and none of the other UN-Habitat operated projects in Tanzania feature in the UNDAP 2011-2015. According to the Country Programme Manager and the UNRC Office, the main reason for this ‘omission’ is failure by the Government of Tanzania to prioritize on urban issues when requests to the UN system were made. However, there are a number of UN-Habitat-supported project initiatives in Tanzania, many of them operated and backstopped by different Headquarters divisions under separate agreements with Tanzanian Government and non-governmental institutions. These initiatives are usually part of global Headquarters programmes


with normative and operational elements. Although some of them are coordinated and supported by the Country Programme Manager in Tanzania, none have been included in the UNDAP. It becomes evident that such an array of fragmented and non-coordinated UN-Habitat-supported activities (often of very small scale) does little to strengthen UN-Habitat’s competency profile, under the Habitat Country Programme Document and as inputs to UNDAP.

Consequently, UN-Habitat’s competence and comparative advantage on urbanization issues like sustainable urbanization, slum upgrading, and land management are not properly recognized in the current UNDAP. The past positive project results with Sustainable Dar es Salaam and slum upgrading have apparently not adequately influenced the Government of Tanzania to introduce these issues into the consultations with the United Nations Country Team and the Resident Coordinator on priorities for assistance from the UN agencies. Considerable effort is needed both at the level of Headquarters and the Country Programme Manager to convince the United Nations Country Team and the Government of Tanzania of UN-Habitat’s urbanization competencies and comparative advantages.

Inadequate support from Headquarters and the RTCD to the Country Programme Manager in terms of funding, staffing, and policy/programming expertise is a matter of concern. The Country Programme Manager is not an expert on human settlement issues, has no assistance from a competent team, and no resources to contribute to the United Nations Country Team and its working groups on action plans for joint programming. There is urgent need for Headquarters to review this unsatisfactory situation. UN-Habitat risks being marginalized further in the UN reform process in Tanzania.

On the more positive side, the Country Programme Manager participation in the United Nations Country Team and its working group on the WASH component has helped to raise the visibility of the agency, and enhanced the interest of other agencies to do joint programming with

UN-Habitat, notably UNDP, UNICEF, WHO, ILO and UNFPA. If the participation of UN-Habitat in the DaO reform programme and its programming institutions can be strengthened, on account of its better recognized and understood coherent and comparative advantage, it will help to deflect the danger to marginalize UN-Habitat in the reform process.

In order to provide professional support to the programming process, the substantive backstopping from Headquarters (by RTCD and assisted by the water and sanitation programme) cannot be ignored. This should include advice to the water and sanitation working group on defining the focus of UN-Habitat’s specific action to achieve a more comprehensive, interlinked and coherent joint programme with the other participating agencies (i.e., UNICEF, UNFPA and WHO). As part of such programming contributions, there is need to develop a more comprehensive and strategic definition of a ‘Joint Programme’, including operational responsibilities, management practices and reporting.

3.6 vietNam

The present One UN Plan for Vietnam during the period 2006-2010 (extended to 2011) is the result of tripartite consultations between the Government of Vietnam, the United Nations Country Team (UNCT) and the donor community. The Plan is financed from ODA donor grant allocations to the One UN Plan Fund (OPF) for Vietnam, under the UN Multi Donor Trust Fund (MDTF), as well as from earmarked and non-earmarked agency contributions (core funds). For the period 2008-2010, OPF budget is at the level of USD 79 million, representing approximately 30 per cent of multilateral ODA grants for Vietnam. UN-Habitat’s participation is solely funded through allocations from the OPF for Vietnam (USD 0.95 million, representing slightly over one per cent of OPF).

As per the OPF allocation criteria, it is hoped that the next One UN Plan will be better integrated among the agencies through procedures of joint and result-based planning. In the current One


UN Plan, the UN-Habitat issues of urbanization, urban development strategies, pro-poor land and housing, improvements of basic infrastructure and services remain somewhat hidden in the total list of 23 output clusters and 93 expected results. Nevertheless, UN-Habitat is recognized, and the agency is expected to make contributions under each of the five plan components in line with its mandate and comparative advantage.

Participation in the One UN Plan in Vietnam is under the responsibility of the UN-Habitat country team, which is composed of one Country Programme Manager and six other nationals (i.e, four professionals and two clerical staff). While the Country Programme Manager is funded from Headquarters resources, the other team members are funded through UNDP administered service contracts, under funds allocated to UN-Habitat from the One UN budget. The One UN Fund allocation is for the purpose of implementing three projects: the Quang Nam Provincial Development Strategy; the Urban Observatory (urban indicators) project; and the pro-poor housing project, totalling USD 0.95 million. While most agencies contribute own resources (core funds) to the DaO process, in the case of UN-Habitat, this modest amount ensures the implementation of three projects, and is the only source of funds for all the other functions of the Country Programme Manager and the team, including participation in the DaO programming and implementation process. The limited resources available to the Country Programme Manager team pose considerable stress and constraints to the team’s ability to perform its multitude of functions.

Apart from the above DaO projects, UN-Habitat activities in Vietnam are funded by the Water for Asian Cities and Mekong Sanitation Project (MekSan), implemented by a national project manager, and coordinated by a regional project office in Laos, separate from the institutional arrangement for DaO in Vietnam, and outside the scope of responsibilities of the Country Programme Manager in Vietnam and of the Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific.

With the implementation of projects funded under

the One UN Fund, the visibility and perception of the agency’s mandate has remarkably increased. As a result of the cooperation agreements on projects with national partners like the Association of Cities of Vietnam, and agencies under the Ministry of Construction, DaO has helped to engage the expertise of other UN agencies in national policy advocacy (i.e. UNFPA involvement in housing policy advocacy, UNDP in climate resilient urban development policy) and local strategic planning (i.e., Quang Nam Provincial Development Strategy with involvement of UNESCO, ILO and FAO). With funding provided under the One UN Plan, UN-Habitat was able to undertake specific projects to demonstrate its competence and value added to its Government counterparts, donors and other UN agencies. The Government recognizes UN-Habitat as its main international partner on issues of sustainable urbanization. With its comparative advantage in terms of specialized expertise, UN-Habitat has been taking the lead among UN agencies on DaO initiatives with sustainable urban development, and has made competent contributions to United Nations Country Team discussions on climate change.

In the next One UN Plan (2012-2016), UN-Habitat shall focus its intervention more on capacity building, policy support, general advocacy, and research on topical issues emanating from the United Nations Country Team. The prospects of funding future UN-Habitat projects through the OPF are not promising. This is not a reflection of UN-Habitat’s competence and relevance to the Socio-Economic Development Plan, but the result of a likely reduction of the OPF for the next plan period. The change of Vietnam’s status from a developing to a middle income country (MIC) will change the external development assistance architecture, less from ODA, with a shift to (concessional) loans and Government cost-sharing. Agency representatives, as well as donors expect a significant drop in OPF funds available for the next One UN Plan. Larger agencies such as UNDP, UNICEF and UNFPA are already preparing for a shift in the funding structure. This scenario will affect UN-Habitat’s future operations in Vietnam considerably. With


the absence of own (core) resources, the priorities and funding modalities through Government cost sharing, or direct donor funding for specific project proposals along the agency’s recognized competencies (including climate change or disaster/risk mitigation and adaptation), need to be considered.

At the level of the Ministry of Construction, which is the Ministry responsible for policies on urbanization and housing, a wide range of requests for assistance is directed towards UN-Habitat and its country team. The ministry has identified the bottlenecks to be at the level of infrastructure, institutional development, and capacity building and human resources. The present support provided by UN-Habitat projects under DaO is highly appreciated; a formal request for further assistance will be made to UN-Habitat soon, including a request for further consultations on future cooperation.

There is overall recognition of UN-Habitat’s specific mandate relevant to the country’s development priorities, its competence and comparative advantage within the United Nations Country Team. The active participation of the Country Programme Manager and the team in the DaO process is very much appreciated by the office of the Resident Coordinator. This positive view is shared by the representatives of other UN agencies, particularly UNDP, UNFPA, FAO and ILO. UN-Habitat’s status as a NRA does not appear to limit its active role and competent participation in the deliberations of the United Nations Country Team and its working groups. In the view of the UNDP country office, UN-Habitat’s focus on programme delivery, while authorizing UNDP to administer its funds, is a good model for other UN agencies of similar size to follow. However, and as mentioned above, the effectiveness of the present Country Programme Manager structure is severely constrained by a lack of human and financial resources.


4.1 iNtrodUctioN

After analysing the information collected in all six countries where UN-Habitat is participating in the DaO, it is possible to conclude that each field office presents a particular case adapting the way of working for positioning UN-Habitat in the new One UN system.

Mozambique, Rwanda, Tanzania and Vietnam have the Country Programme Manager dealing with DaO and all additional matters related to the UN-Habitat office. In Cape Verde there is a national coordinator and the Country Programme Manager from Senegal is supporting the DaO process. Pakistan office has a Country Programme Manager dealing with humanitarian projects and two national professionals dealing with DaO. It is interesting to note that countries with Country Programme Manager (with the exception of Tanzania) UN-Habitat managed to enlarge its country programme and increase its funds. This was true also for Cape Verde with the Country Programme Manager from Senegal. Except for Tanzania, countries with Country Programme Managers, as a consequence of the enlarged programme UN-Habitat has built a team of seven to ten staff. In all DaO countries the Country

Programme Managers are fully participating in the United Nations Country Team and in planning meetings, but they are excluded from strategic meetings where main decisions are taken.

In all DaO countries advocacy of UN-Habitat mandate has increased and recognition from UN agencies and Government has improved. This is not true for Tanzania, where changes have not been significant; and in Pakistan, where the strength of the office is measured on the humanitarian programme. It is also a common pattern in DaO countries that Governments are relegating UN agencies from the purely implementation of projects, requesting for more policy, strategic and capacity building involvement, and looking for areas where the UN can add value and make a difference.

It is interesting to note that although the DaO changed the way field offices are doing business, becoming fully participative in the new One UN approach, the working relation with the Regional Office (technical support) and with Headquarters (normative, finance support) has remained largely unchanged. UN-Habitat’s Regional Office and Headquarters have not adapted their working system and structure as One UN-Habitat. This becomes very disruptive with core

4. un-HabITaT PaRTICIPaTIon In Dao: CHallenGes anD oPPoRTunITIes

Women waiting to collect water in Pakistan © UN-Habitat


projects (financed from earmarked and non-earmarked funds) managed from Headquarters’s divisions disregarding DaO country programme. Mozambique and Cape Verde are the exception because core projects form part of the DaO. The normative divisions consider DaO applicable to Headquarters without realising that it is exactly the normative inputs that makes the difference with DaO, placing the agency mandate where a difference can be made, adding value and highlighting where UN-Habitat (and not other agencies) can contribute in relation to national priorities. While a number of Country Programme Managers represent UN-Habitat, and its specific competencies fit well in the (very complex, competitive, top-down and time-consuming) DaO programming, the required policy, administrative, financial and human resources support from Headquarters and Regional Offices remain inadequate.

From the above summary a fairly uneven and disjointed picture emerges about UN-Habitat participation in the selected DaO pilot countries: lack of a common policy platform, a rational strategy, and coherent programmatic and administrative support from Headquarters. The reason for this sub-optimal situation is partly the result of specific conditions facing each country, which have brought about particular sets of interventions of the agency (and of the UN development system), broadly guided by national development priorities. A more agency-related fundamental reason for the disjointed approach appears to be linked to inadequacies of UN-Habitat policies at the Headquarters regarding the projection of a coherent, integrated and unified operational strategy. Such an interdivisional and coordinated operational strategy of ‘UN-Habitat Delivering as One’, focusing on a sharpened profile of competencies for non-global in-country activities, and matched by standardized management practices would be essential if the agency is to play a more visible, specific and effective role in the DaO reform process at country level.

The current MTSIP distinction between ‘normative’ and ‘operational’ activities, and lack

of interdivisional coordination in implementing the ‘Enhanced Normative and Operational Framework’ (ENOF) appears to be impeding the projection of a unified and integrated strategy in support of UN-Habitat competencies and comparative advantages which would be needed in the DaO reform process at country level. According to the Peer Review of the Implementation of UN-Habitat’s Medium-Term Strategic and Institutional Plan (2010) ‘Coordination between global, regional and country activities is often based on informal mechanisms without clearly defined roles and formalized systems. With an expanding level of activities at the regional and country levels and an increased emphasis on a combined normative and operational approach, the current situation is unsatisfactory’. There appear to be inconsistencies between the requirements for UN-Habitat participating in joint programming at country level under the UN reform process, and the agency’s MTSIP strategic approach.

In terms of programme focus, the recently formulated (through an interdivisional process) policy papers on focus areas for the MTSIP appear to remain limited in value as reference documents for consultations with the Governing Council and donors, rather than guiding the agency strategies in demonstrating comparative advantages at country level in joint DaO programming processes.

Based on these overall comments on the fragmented agency presence in DaO (and other) countries, the following sections focus on the challenges and opportunities for UN-Habitat participation at country level, as well as at the level of Headquarters and Regional Offices, building on the required support from Headquarters.

4.2 cHalleNges aNd oPPortUNities for coUNtrY offices

status of UN-Habitat country teams

UN-Habitat in Cape Verde, Mozambique, Rwanda and Vietnam is considered a Non-Resident Agency (NRA). In these countries


the UN makes a difference between NRAs with presence and NRAs without presence in-country. In Tanzania, UN-Habitat is considered a ‘resident agency’, simply on the account of having Country Programme Manager being resident in the country, regardless of national or international status.

One of the main benefits of DaO is that it provides NRAs with the opportunity to participate in equal conditions with resident agencies in the United Nations Country Team providing technical and policy advice to the Government and other UN agencies to ensure mainstreaming some of their mandates in the United Nations Development Assistance Framework (or other One UN country programme documents). This opportunity that brings technical capacity, providing the relevant normative and strategic inputs adding value to the national programme with actions that are worth to be implemented, providing a short-term solution to one of the greatest challenges for NRAs when competing with resident agencies that are institutionalised in the country with larger number of technical staff and a large baggage of implemented projects and links with national institutions.

The status of UN-Habitat as a NRA does not appear to constrain the ability of the Country Programme Manager to make programmatic and coordinated contributions to the DaO process in the case of Cape Verde, Mozambique, Pakistan, Rwanda and Vietnam, largely because of their demonstrated competence. However, UN-Habitat’s contribution in Tanzania remains marginal for reasons of inadequate agency presence. UN-Habitat has teams of seven to ten staff in Mozambique, Rwanda and Vietnam, but has only one staff in Cape Verde and Tanzania, and a team of over 40 staff in Pakistan dedicated to humanitarian projects with only two working on DaO (Table 4.1). Except Country Programme Managers who are financed from Headquarters’s funds, all others are financed from projects or DaO funds. Project financed staff are not considered ‘permanent’ staff and their TORs address project implementation, leaving little or no time for them to participate in DaO planning and coordination. In the case of Pakistan, project income from the large volume of humanitarian activities finance the staff dedicated to DaO. The benefit of Pakistan with a large humanitarian programme subsidising DaO staff is not repeated in other countries.

table 4.1: staffing table of UN-Habitat country teams

Cape Verde Mozambique Pakistan Rwanda Tanzania Vietnam

Country Programme Manager 0 1 0 1 1 1

Professional 1 7 2 4 0 4

General Service 0 2 0 3 0 2

Sub-total DaO staff 1 10 2 8 1 7

Non-DaO staff 0 1 (JPO) 40 0 0 0

total 2 21 44 16 2 14

The Country Programme Managers are responsible for DaO planning, a time demanding task as well as stressful due to the technical requirements in a variety of topics covered by the agency mandate. Nonetheless they have ensured UN-Habitat participation in DaO in the pilot countries; thereby, promoting the implementation of UN-Habitat’s mandate jointly with national partners

and coordinating with UN agencies. However, the support to Country Programme Manager offices in the pilot countries is reciprocal—uncoordinated, underfinanced and understaffed and remains administratively fragmented as Headquarters’ programme divisions continue to apply different management practices.


The scope and effectiveness of UN-Habitat’s participation in the One UN reform process depends, to a large extent on the professional competence of its country team. The profile of functions of Country Programme Manager teams is considerable in scope:

• Ensure the recognition of UN-Habitat’s competence, competitiveness and comparative advantage at the level of United Nations Country Team deliberations, including participation in numerous meetings required for OP preparation and coordination;

• Establish partnerships with UN agencies for joint programming under DaO;

• Establish partnerships with Government institutions and local authorities as well as with the civil society;

• Set up and coordinate the implementation of technical cooperation projects in the country;

• Carry out advocacy work and public relations, including World Habitat Day at country level;

• Provide logistic and substantive support to UN-Habitat global programmes, which are not funded through DaO or other operational budgets; and

• Carry out administrative (including financial) and substantive reporting to United Nations Country Team, UNDP, ROAP, former RTCD and donors, as required under established arrangements.

UN-Habitat mandate in dao countries

UN-Habitat activities undertaken and financed in DaO countries are important and there is a commitment from staff in delivering them in the best way possible. The results obtained are of good quality and recognised at country level. However, when looking at the country needs and priorities, and the UN-Habitat mandate from a wider perspective, it is possible to notice that other interventions at policy and strategy levels could have had a greater impact.

Coordinated by the UN Resident Coordinator and his/her team, the work of UN Country Teams in joint programming and coordination

of the UN agencies’ respective competencies and comparative advantages for DaO is still dominated by the ‘big’ resident UN agencies. DaO country plan priorities and outcomes in the result-oriented programming approach within the overall framework of MDGs are led by UNDP, UNICEF and UNFPA (i.e., ‘ExCom’ agencies under the UNDG coordination). It is unlikely that this imbalance will change in the years to come, also because the process of agencies applying for resources from a common pool of Multi Donor Trust Fund resources is especially competitive, given the scope of mandate overlaps in the UN system. UN-Habitat is therefore faced both with opportunities and risks, when enhancing its competitive profile, while responding to its specific mandate. The country programme management team in Vietnam has so far not experienced a competitive business climate. This could probably change if the overall ODA allocations to that country are reduced in the years to come (as Vietnam change to a Middle Income Country). In contrast, the Country Programme Manager in Cape Verde, Mozambique, Rwanda and Tanzania experienced increased competition among the agencies ‘even more so than expected’.

UN-Habitat’s activities with the Government and other UN agencies have been facilitated with a unique platform for planning, coordination and implementation at all levels gaining better recognition of its mandate. This has helped the expansion of the agency’s portfolio. However, in the next DaO cycle, the Governments of Cape Verde, Mozambique, Rwanda and Vietnam will push for a change requesting UN agencies to concentrate more on policy and strategic activities that add value to the development in the country. They will make even more difficult the planning, coordination and prioritization of the One UN programme at the United Nations Country Team and Government level. This new approach will imply that UN-Habitat will have to enhance its capabilities and competences in matters related to urbanization and slum upgrading strategies, housing and urban policy, climate change, disaster response and


preparedness, urban transport strategies, urban land management and so forth. Accordingly, the agency will have to present new and innovative proposals to convince other UN agencies to express interest in joint programming and Governments to include UN-Habitat priorities in the next DaO cycle for its finance.

4.3 cHalleNges aNd oPPortUNities for HeadQUarters aNd regioNal offices

UN-Habitat is a relatively small agency in the UN system with a specific mandate. It has to overcome a number of structural constraints at Headquarters and Regional Offices. To fully participate in this system-wide initiative UN-Habitat will need to lay the policy, programme, legal and administrative foundation to address various constraints, including:

• Planning and approval processes of work programmes and (project) activities which are currently agency-specific and Headquarters focused;

• Human resource constraints in terms of limited capacity at the country level to effect DaO operations, as well as resource management, contract modalities etc. which need to be harmonized with the DaO reform process; and

• Incompatible information technology platforms, making monitoring and reporting at different levels, a complex and time-consuming exercise.

There are considerable opportunities for UN-Habitat to participate in the DaO/One UN process, including:

• Work as a full member of UN country teams with a unity of purpose to support agreed national priorities;

• Achieve improved understanding of UN-Habitat’s comparative advantage and competitive capacity at country level and within the UN system;

• Strengthen UN-Habitat’s capacity and comparative advantage in joint programming

with other agencies;

• Introduce UN-Habitat’s specific mandate to a wider and more receptive international development fraternity;

• Make specific contributions through a harmonized approach of the UN’s work with Government partners at national and local level with donors and other stakeholders;

• Improve long-term and predictable funding sources; and

• Contribute to achieve commonly agreed (UN system wide) programme results.

Such opportunities for UN-Habitat’s future role in the DaO process are closely linked to a number of challenges to the organization, such as:

• A joint effort by different agencies with unique mandates and specific interests tends to slow down the acceptance of radical reforms required by the DaO approach;

• UN-Habitat currently does not provide adequate policy, programmatic, financial and human resource support to the DaO process in countries;

• Donors are yet to ensure predictable multi-year financing of One UN country plans, which particularly affects small agencies suc as UN-Habitat;

• UN-Habitat has to reconsider its mandate and programme balance between normative activities at Headquarters and operational intervention at country levels; and

• Results-based programming and implementation of joint programmes (with other agencies) has risks in diluting the specific mandate and added value of UN-Habitat, and pose particular challenges with regard to reporting and agency accountability.

a. one UN-Habitat and needed reform

In line with the key components of the DaO reform process in the UN system, UN-Habitat should take appropriate steps to ‘act and Deliver as One’ coordinating policy/programmes, unifying UN-Habitat budget, and directing one set of management practices. If not, there is a great


risk of UN-Habitat remaining marginal to the UN DaO reform process, and fail to benefit adequately from its joint programming opportunities with the UN system of agencies, be further alienated from the donor community (except for humanitarian assistance which follows a different donor approach), and risk a decline of its classic mandate and strength on urbanization issues.

At country level, resident UN agencies are taking advantage of the DaO with their well settled and structured policy advice and technical support. The DaO opens the possibility for NRAs to participate in joint activities at country level, but the agency needs to provide quality messages highlighting its comparative advantages in line with its mandate, demonstrating its capacity to implement improvements in the national context. UN-Habitat, therefore, needs to have an agency-wide policy (not limited to RTCD), with common strategy and programme focus, common management practices, pooled country budgets, unified (financial and substantive) reporting and strengthened human resource support from existing divisions. The current fragmentation of division-led management practices and separate budgets is not sustainable and will be counterproductive to the agency’s ability to participate in a coherent manner in the DaO reform process.

At UN-Habitat Headquarters, especially the Global Division, the DaO seems to be considered a particular modality of implementation applicable only to the RTCD. This misunderstanding of a global change in the UN system is affecting the agency as a whole, particularly regarding its future focus on country activities. This carries far-reaching implications for UN-Habitat’s presence and ability to work in countries, as well as for the future structure of the organization in terms of budgeting, balance between normative and operational activities, programme management and human resource allocations at country level, Headquarters and Regional Offices. Although not an ‘executing agency’, the level of awareness in UNEP on the implications of the DaO reform process appears to be considerably higher than at UN-Habitat Headquarters.

The assessment of the six DaO countries in which UN-Habitat participates indicates that Headquarters is far from being One UN-Habitat with the Global Division and RTCD pushing for predominance and justifications for direct field intervention to the detriment of the agency. In order to join the One UN-Habitat, it should find common grounds of structural and procedural understanding at the Headquarters other than personal understanding which seems to be the working approach. As the DaO reform process is likely to gain momentum in the UN system, UN-Habitat has no option but to follow suit. Failure would lead to marginalization of UN-Habitat in the UN system.

The MTSIP distinction between normative and operational work at Headquarters is not very meaningful at country level; a successful ‘operational’ project on housing policy or sustainable urbanization, for example, becomes ‘normative’ when adopted as a national policy. Normative global programmes at Headquarters become operational as soon as their ‘norms’ are applied at country level through ‘operational’ projects. Efforts to make this budgetary and human resource distinction more coherent under the Enhanced Normative and Operational Framework did not fully meet with expected results at Headquarters level except for the allocation of some non-overhead funded posts to the Regional Offices. This area remains a challenge.

UN-Habitat support to DaO countries is mainly from the Regional Office for Africa and the Arab States and the Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific, with very limited or no support from normative divisions. At field level there is an increased demand for new and renovated know-how to advocate for more participation of the agency in new areas of intervention as well as on innovative ways to assist the country needs. In line with the thematic focus areas of UN-Habitat under the MTSIP, there is need to sharpen UN-Habitat’s profile of competence for in-country activities, including an agency profile on its specific and comparative advantage on partnership with local authorities. The main operational tools should be policy advice, advocacy and awareness (including


networking and catalytic work with partners) and capacity building, among others, depending on local realities.

Within the advocacy role, UN-Habitat should focus on raising public awareness in DaO countries on the significance of development issues related to urbanization. It should consider providing substantive support to the setting up of political lobbies promoting its mandate, identifying substantive priorities of intervention and providing light on innovative and well-structured solutions that convince United Nations Country Team members and Government counterparts. In a parallel and equally important initiative, UN-Habitat should be doing the same at the level of UN in New York and Geneva and in other venues during global DaO meetings with sister agencies, positioning UN-Habitat as an agency that is adding value to the DaO on urban governance, urban management, slum upgrading, land management and others. These (and other) clear lines of action will reinforce UN-Habitat’s voice at the United Nations Country Team meetings and with counterparts at Government level.

The DaO reform process is not limited to pilot countries. There are a number of countries in all regions adopting the policies inherent to the reform process, and want to transform their ‘business model’ of multilateral development assistance along the principles of One Budget, One Programme, One Leader, One set of Management Practices (possibly expanded to One Voice and One UN house). These ‘self-starters’ in the DaO jargon include Bhutan, Laos, Maldives, Mongolia, Papua New guinea, and the Philippines (in the Asia and the Pacific Region), and Botswana, Comoros, Ethiopia, Liberia, Lesotho, Malawi, Namibia, and Zimbabwe (in the Africa Region).

b. UN-Habitat reform for dao accomplishment

UN-Habitat Regional Offices have only limited delegated authority, being more of an extended arm of RTCD, rather than a full Regional Office. The recent allocation of staff resources under regular budget and MTSIP funds to the Regional Offices is

in the right direction to enable them carry out non-operational mandates under the MTSIP strategy. The DaO reform process at country level requires more substantive policy and programme support from Regional Offices to the country teams, in order to assist them participate more competently in the United Nations Country Team working teams on joint programming and implementation.

DaO has to begin within UN-Habitat Headquarters; there is urgency to establish a common programme management structure for all divisions to be followed by country activities. The current practice of some divisions setting up their own country support lines, like many global programmes, needs to be stopped. Regional Offices may have to be transformed from extended arms of former RTCD to proper UN-Habitat Regional Offices, with a pool of staff from programme Divisions and a funding drawn from different UN-Habitat sources.

UN-Habitat actively contributes to and participates in the DaO strategy formulation on global and regional priorities in New York and in Bangkok (for the Asia and the Pacific Region). However, the support to the efforts of Country Programme Managers in the pilot countries is not well coordinated. They are underfinanced and understaffed, and remains administratively fragmented, as programme divisions continue to apply different management practices. The participation of UN-Habitat in the DaO reform process in the pilot countries is affected by the UN system’s move towards a harmonized and unified set of agency management practices (i.e., Harmonized Programme and Project Management Guidelines (HPPMG)). Equally, UN-Habitat’s administrative support to DaO operations in the pilot countries require a review and adjustment in response to expected system-wide adoptions of standard basic country agreements (SBA), of a Harmonized Approach to Cash Transfers (HACT), or the adoption of common (and country-specific) cost norms for budget lines such as national staff (and national consultants), travel, and so on. This process is quite advanced in a number of pilot countries. However, it is beyond the scope of this evaluation to assess the implications of these administrative reforms on UN-Habitat’s DaO participation.


c. the One UN fund and funds for dao implementation

The One UN Fund has proved an incentive for UN agencies to work together, in particular specialised agencies, encouraging a coherent and holistic approach to programming which plays to the strengths of each participating agency.

The One UN Fund was presented as facilitating improved programming and better management for results, as well as enhancing the UN’s compliance with the spirit and principles of mutual accountability established in the Paris Declaration and Accra Agenda for Action. Different pilot DaO countries have different approaches for the One UN Fund. The first DaO cycle was referred to the UN fund resources to be distributed by agencies for implementing joint programmes. For the next cycle, starting 2012, this concept has changed. In Cape Verde, Rwanda, Mozambique and Tanzania, the One UN Fund will correspond to a single budget for the entire United Nations Country Team Programme, which is divided across three funding sources: agency core resources; agency non-core resources; and One UN Fund resources. Consequently, the One UN joint programme will include all projects and activities implemented at country level independently from the source of finance.

Such eligibility and performance based funding criteria have enabled the United Nations Country Team to sharpen the focus of the One UN Programme, with a clear division of labour based on parameters such as agency capacity, comparative advantage and mandates. In other words, the

One UN Fund has effectively fostered a more transparent approach to programming thereby enhancing accountability to both Government and development partners. As per the current management and accountability framework, the Resident Coordinator is responsible for leading effective resource mobilisation at the country level for the One Programme. However, there is no mechanism to bind which agencies to adhere to this principle.

DaO budgets to finance One UN Country Plans in the pilot countries are usually sourced directly from the Multi Donor Trust Fund (a minor part) as well as from agency core funds and country allocations from non-core funds. Access to Multi Donor Trust Fund under DaO is proving effective to support UN-Habitat’s contribution to the reform process in most countries. However, the limited amount of core resources from UN-Habitat’s own budget sets limits to the scope and effectiveness of the agency’s participation in joint programmes with other agencies. This is particularly so in the case of Pakistan, Rwanda, Tanzania and Vietnam where the country programmes / projects are almost exclusively financed through the Multi Donor Trust Fund pool of funds. The DaO process brings in only a limited amount of ‘new’ financial resources through MDTF allocations. Even more so in future, the DaO reform process will depend on core resources from agencies, earmarked or non-earmarked, Government cost-sharing, soft loans, and corporate funding sources (Table 4.2). So far, UN-Habitat’s contribution to DaO from its own core resources has been quite limited.

table 4.2: source of funding for UN-Habitat dao projects

Cape Verde

Mozambique Pakistan Rwanda Tanzania Vietnam

DaO Contribution (USD) 500,000 4,126,500 3.600,000 2.247,300 0 950,000

UN-Habitat Core funds*(USD) 88,500

3,148,300

- 180,000

?

-

total dao funds under implementation by UN-Habitat (Usd)

588,500 7,274,800 3,600,000 2,427,300 0 950,000

Percentage of UN-Habitat Core funds (%) 15.0 43.3 0.0 7.4 0.0 0.0

(*) For ‘core funds’ is understood all funds gathered by UN-Habitat used for financing projects and activities at field level, and independent of Foundation funds, bilateral contributions, AOS, trust funds, earmarked or non-earmarked funds.


The volume of Multi Donor Trust Fund support to UN-Habitat country activities is quite small (i.e. 1.2 per cent from the total MDTF funds in Cape Verde, six per cent in Mozambique; four per cent in Pakistan; 0.5 per cent in Rwanda; and 1.2 per cent in Vietnam), and is not likely to increase significantly if the agency follows the same path. Otherwise, it is likely to be reduced even further.

DaO funds are limited and generally the One UN plan cannot be fully financed with donor contribution. Therefore competition among agencies increase and the Resident Coordinator restrict the allocation of DaO funds to certain conditions, for instance, through the contribution of core funds from the agency. This was the case of UN-Habitat in Cape Verde where USD 88,500 allowed access to USD 500,000 and the same in Mozambique, where the agency contributions of all projects not financed by DaO. In Rwanda if the agency does not increase its contribution, the possibilities of obtaining DaO funds is very limited and projects will remain unfunded. Core funds and non-core funds should be mobilized to upscale UN-Habitat activities at country level.

It is clear that contributing with core funding for DaO implementation helps in leveraging larger amounts of DaO funds and it is also clear that potential funds from Headquarters are totally unknown in the field; thus, it is impossible to plan in advance, although every year a certain number of projects are implemented with core funding.

In Tanzania, Vietnam and Pakistan, UN-Habitat’s Global Division is implementing projects financed from UN-Habitat funds. These projects are not managed by the Regional Office and have not been included in the One UN country programme. This situation has several disadvantages; for instance, it is not following the DaO approach in the pilot countries and raises criticisms on UN-Habitat coordination and non-aligning with the One UN programme. On the other hand, UN-Habitat is losing a great opportunity of leveraging DaO funds using UN-Habitat funds as agency contribution. Moreover, there is no centralized procedure which manages and accounts for UN-Habitat contribution. As

a result, the agency’s yearly country activities report does not provide a complete picture of UN-Habitat’s country activities (e.g., Pakistan, Tanzania and Vietnam). Efforts by the internal task force on ENOF to make an inventory of all UN-Habitat activities at country level, and their total budgets, did not provide useful results. A good example of integration was in Mozambique where, following the initiative of the UN-Habitat country staff, all projects financed by UN-Habitat were included in the DaO as agency contribution, and the result is very positive in terms of integration with DaO at country level and in leveraging DaO funds.

dao project implementation and reporting

In Cape Verde, Mozambique, Rwanda (and other countries) DaO projects are being implemented at a slow pace. This is affecting agency reputation with beneficiaries and partners, and the allocation of DaO funds. One of the main factors behind these delays is the procurement and recruitment process of the UNDP office. Although an agreement with UNDP stipulates that UN-Habitat will implement projects following its own rules and regulations for recruitment and procurement, UNDP does not act on authorizations from PSD and UNON.

UN-Habitat field staff follow UN-Habitat/UNON procurements and recruitments procedures; all the documentation goes for approval to Headquarters, where it is revised by the Senior HSO, the respective PMO, and then to PSD/UNON for final approval. Once the approval arrives to UNDP at country level for issuing the contract or paying the vendor, the full process starts again putting on hold the approval received from UNON and repeating the whole process of verification through internal UNDP procurement and recruitment system (including the Contracts, Assets and Procurement Committee and other internal mechanisms) at a fee. That process is obviously very slow (i.e., it is not UNDP priority) remaining pending for weeks and months. Applying its own system, sometimes UNDP may challenge what is approved by UNON.


Up to now the Country Programme Manager and the Senior Human Settlements Officer have tried in different countries to speed the UNDP approval process without much help. What is required is an agency intervention based on agreements and understanding between the two agencies.

UN-Habitat’s participation in the DaO process depends, to a considerable extent, on the support provided by Headquarters in Nairobi and by the Regional Office, in terms of ensuring compliance with UN-Habitat’s mandate and policy priorities (focus areas), substantive backstopping capacities, and administrative services through PSD and UNON. There is concern among the Country Programme Manager country team that requirements of project approval, allocation of funds, financial and substantive reporting are multi-layered, and involve different IT formats (UNON and UNDP use different formats). As such, they are very time-consuming and not always applicable to UN-Habitat projects financed from DaO funds. Requirements, particularly financial and substantive reporting, make considerable demands on working time. Concerning substantive reporting, regular reports

on One UN Plan implementation to the Resident Coordinator and the Monitoring and Evaluation Team represent an additional layer, considering reports to Regional Office under the MTSIP format for clearance and transmission to Headquarters for inclusion in the former RTCD annual report on operational activities. In addition, donors have their own reporting format on projects implemented through earmarked funding.

In DaO countries, there is joint planning with strong participation of UN agencies and less strong involvement of Government counterparts, however relatively adequate for being driven from the UN side. There is less joint implementation with lapses in coordination, distribution of funds and recruitment / procurements processes where different timings of different agencies affect the joint process. Joint monitoring is drafted and included in the joint programme document, however there is more monitoring on expenditures and less on substantive aspects. Up to now joint accountability for results seems to be an area where little effort has been dedicated and its mechanisms need to be streamlined and clarified.


5.1 coNclUsioNs

5.1.1 cross-cutting conclusions

There appears to be little option to UN-Habitat’s continued (and strengthened) participation in DaO, as the alternative might be to be excluded from the list of participating agencies on account of inadequate performance.

UN-Habitat’s work with the Governments and other UN agencies has been facilitated through the DaO, a unique platform for planning, coordination and implementation. The agency’s contributions at all levels have gained better recognition in terms of its mandate and expanded its portfolio. To maintain and improve UN-Habitat participation in the DaO would need to enlarge the Country Programme Manager team and continue building the capacity of field staff to better respond to the increasing demand.

Given that in the next United Nations Development Assistance Framework cycle, the Governments will push for a change requesting UN agencies to concentrate more on substantive activities adding value to development in the country, UN-Habitat Headquarters should provide normative and strategic support to field teams and also present

alternatives in United Nations Country Team and programming activities.

During the pilot DaO process, a vast amount of field experience has been accumulated, but most of it has not been shared among field offices. This experience should be packaged and shared among staff of DaO and ‘self-started’ DaO countries to enhance learning at Headquarters and Regional Offices.

The One UN trend, in pilot and non-pilot DaO countries, has not reached UN-Habitat Headquarters as planning, funding and implementation of field activities continue to be by divisions or project-based. A One UN-Habitat approach at Headquarters and Regional Offices is likely to improve the perception of the agency by Government and other UN agencies, complementing its mandate within the country needs.

DaO funds at country level are inadequate to cover all identified activities, and there is a risk in leaving the agency without financial resources. It is important to strategize the use of available core funding from Headquarters, a pre-condition for leveraging DaO funds. It is also important for UN-Habitat to initiate fundraising to obtain additional seed money to enable it access larger amounts

5. ConClusIons, lessons leaRneD anD ReCoMMenDaTIons

Garbage collection workers cleaning up a site in Kigali, Rwanda © UN-Habitat


more visible. UN-Habitat also needs to strengthen its presence in UNDG meetings in New York and other venues where the DaO main decisions in relation to field priorities and distribution of DaO funds are taken.

Core funding for DaO implementation would leverage larger amounts of DaO funds. However, this funding (and its availability) is totally unknown in the field. Headquarters should be more transparent on its core funds producing a sort of forecast of funds per country, and facilitating planning and negotiation at field level. Headquarters should also align its divisions with the One UN in the field, allocating core funds to projects aligned with the DaO country plan.

The HCPD and the planning for DaO were done more or less in parallel; producing two different documents and two different planning instruments for the same country and same Government counterpart, both demanding time and effort from the same staff. There is urgent need for Headquarters to rationalise planning, reporting, monitoring and other documents that in many cases duplicate in content, but cover different periods or use different formats.

Pakistan

UN-Habitat’s mandate and comparative advantage in human settlements and urbanization issues are well recognized in the current One UN Plan so is the agency’s participation at the United Nations Country Team level.

UN-Habitat’s programmatic and policy coordination at the United Nations Country Team and its working groups is financially not sustainable and presently require subsidies through AOS sources from the large humanitarian projects on post disaster recovery and reconstruction. UN-Habitat interventions are overwhelmingly oriented towards (and funded through) humanitarian and peacekeeping donor contributions, with long term development activities through policy support and service delivery taking a backseat.

In order to increase cost effectiveness, core resources may have to be mobilized to set up

of DaO funds. Field offices are too far from UN-Habitat Headquarters’ decision centre and have limited authority at country level, constraining them from taking decisions. Decentralisation and delegation of authority should materialise closer to the action, through transfer of responsibilities and accountability to Regional Offices and field offices as emphasized in urban governance documents of UN-Habitat.

5.1.2 country specific conclusions

mozambique

The Country Programme Manager is responsible for DaO planning. This is a time demanding and stressful task, with technical requirements in a variety of topics covered by the agency’s mandate. The field office is delivering over USD 1 million per year and the possibility for increasing that amount exists. For this reason, it would be necessary to enlarge the team of permanent staff to be more competitive with larger agencies where different specialists participate in the planning process providing technical input and advocating for their mandates in the Government and UN meetings. Enlarging permanent staff could also improve monitoring and assistance to project preparation and implementation.

The office in Mozambique is supported by ROAAS with very limited or no support provided by other divisions. At field level there is increasing demand for new and renovated know-how to advocate for more participation of the agency in new areas of intervention as well as on innovative ways to assist country needs. Without a continuous improvement of normative aspects it would be difficult for UN-Habitat to increase its portfolio of implementation.

In the new DaO cycle (2012-2015), UN-Habitat field staff managed to include interventions for USD 10 million, i.e., 250 per cent more than the amount leveraged by the agency from DaO funds. To include the UN-Habitat component in the United Nations Development Assistance Framework does not mean automatic prioritisation and funding. Considering the increasing competition among UN agencies it is necessary to strengthen Headquarters presence in the field, to become


a UN-Habitat country team which can ensure policy support to Government and United Nations Country Team. The team would require recruitment of some national professionals to ensure continued and specific thematic contributions to the deliberations of the United Nations Country Team.

UN-Habitat’s future participation in the One UN Plan should focus more on advocacy, policy support and advice to Government and partners, at the provincial and local government level. This will raise awareness in the general public and among the agencies on urbanization issues, especially with the creation of a National Habitat Committee drawn from stakeholders.

rwanda

Staff and the Government are committed in delivering UN-Habitat activities undertaken and financed by the DaO in Rwanda. The results obtained are of good quality and recognised at country level. However, when looking at country needs and priorities, and UN-Habitat’s mandate from a wider perspective, it is possible to identify that other interventions at policy and strategy levels could have had a greater impact. The Headquarters should provide field staff with continuous and systematic know-how applicable to the country, aligned with the Government request for the next cycle to support its vision 2020 with more value added interventions.

The DaO planning process is extremely demanding and has become more of a policy and strategic exercise. However, divisions at Headquarters and Regional Offices continue working under silos with interaction based on personal relations and not on a structural set up. Under the present situation, field staff have no necessary normative tools to advocate for the agency’s mandate in critical planning meetings. The DaO and the new working modality in the UN provide opportunity for UN-Habitat to restructure Headquarters and Regional Offices for joining capabilities and providing the field with the best from normative and operational divisions.

DaO funds are limited and have some conditions (such as the contribution of core funds from

the agency) to access them. UN-Habitat core funds are limited; however some are available and independently of the amount can highly reinforce the participation of the agency locally. Core funds allocated to Rwanda and later retrieved damaged the agency in front of Government authorities and should not be repeated. In addition, core funds should be better coordinated at Headquarters level and better managed for obtaining increased DaO funds.

Projects are implemented at a slow pace, affecting agency reputation with beneficiaries and partners. Delays of six months are common at UNDP offices. This constraint falls under PSD and UNON and should be solved. On a wider perspective, the existence of this problem implies the need for improved communication and collaboration mechanisms between RTCD, PSD and UNON to be worked out at Headquarters.

tanzania

UN-Habitat’s thematic focus areas in the One UN Plan for Tanzania (UNDAP) are limited to participation (through joint programming with UNDP, UNICEF and WHO) in the UNDAP WASH (Water, Sanitation and Health) focus area. UN-Habitat’s participation in WASH is likely to get close to USD 0.9 million from the One UN Fund for the plan period 2011-2015, representing about 0.4 per cent of the One UN Fund. In order to access this funding, UN-Habitat has to submit to the United Nations Country Team working group on WASH specific project proposals for joint programming in the next few weeks.

None of UN-Habitat’s other thematic focus areas, i.e., urbanization, slum upgrading, land management, has been programmed under the UNDAP 2011-2015, which is probably an omission on the part of the Government of Tanzania as well as on part of ROAAS.

Most of UN-Habitat’s initiatives in Tanzania are under a fragmented financing and management support from different Divisions of UN-Habitat which may have to be reviewed in light of their exclusion from UNDAP.


UN-Habitat ‘country team’ consists of only one person who struggles to address the wide scope of Country Programme Manager multiple functions without financial or human resource support from Headquarters. If UN-Habitat is to better participate in the Tanzania UNDAP, the Country Programme Manager system needs to be considerably supported in terms of budgeting, financial resources, participation in United Nations Country Team and its working groups, joint programming with other agencies, implementation and coordination of UN-Habitat project inputs to WASH.

vietnam

UN-Habitat’s participation in DaO depends fully on OPF allocations, the level of which is likely to drop significantly in future, especially because of donor withdrawal of ODA grant contributions.

It is expected that OP3 (2012-2016) will identify sustainable urbanization among its development priorities, and include explicit references to focus areas under UN-Habitat’s competence including climate change, and disaster preparedness and mitigation.

If UN-Habitat shall in future make competent and recognized contributions to the United Nations Country Team under the DaO process and develop a larger project portfolio, it will need to strengthen the financial and human resource situation of the Country Programme Manager’s office.

Without a stronger financial and human resource base, the significant demands on UN-Habitat DaO participation in terms of working hours, new and bureaucratic procedures, participation in different layers of coordination mechanisms, monitoring and reporting, are likely to outpace the potential advantages and gains in terms of raising the agency’s visibility.

UN-Habitat’s programme in Vietnam should be carried under a unified institutional arrangement, coordinated by ROAP and the office of the Country Programme Manager. This move will require a review and adaptation of existing

arrangements for UN-Habitat’s operations with PSD, UNON, ROAP and the office of the Country Programme Manager, involving such issues as human resources, delegated authority, procurement, IT, and monitoring and reporting (financial and substantive).

5.2 lessoNs learNed

1. The administration and finance procedures in Headquarters have continued to use the same system as before the DaO without any specific measure in relation to the pilot DaO countries. The only difference is on the finance report which is done once a year, on-line and using the DaO template which is similar to the trust fund template.

2. The new requirements of DaO at country level in pilot and self-started countries justifies an increased level of decentralisation and delegation of authority to regional and country offices. Decentralization specifically should:

(a) Rationalize roles, responsibilities and accountabilities between Headquarters, ROs and field office;

(b) Transfer vertically functions to the Regional Office and country office;

(c) Downshift responsibilities to Regional Offices and country offices, and create more space for national accountability and ownership;

(d) Increasing the human resource capacity to provide required technical, policy and strategic assistance at country level; and

(e) Simplifying procedures, monitoring and reporting.

3. Regarding core funding, it would be ideal if a forecast could be made for DaO countries in order to facilitate commitment in planning and negotiation at field level. It would also be good if core funding allocated to projects could reach the country aligned with the DaO plan and coordinated from Headquarters with the DaO mechanisms of implementation.

4. There is tendency among donors to shift their ODA less to the Multi Donor Trust Fund


in favour of funding global programmes (e.g., the Global Environment Facility (GEF) or HIV/AIDS) and back to earmarked agency funding. UN-Habitat country programmes cannot rely on the allocation of funds from Multi Donor Trust Fund. The agency needs to make effort mobilising additional funds, and open other funding sources like Government cost-sharing (e.g., Vietnam) or corporate sources. If not, the agency’s participation in joint programming under the DaO process will not be sustainable.

5. In order to minimise the cut on UN-Habitat allocations for DaO components, it would be important to strategize the use of available core funding from Headquarters, and to initiate a fundraising exercise that can provide seed funds for UN-Habitat activities in DaO countries leveraging larger amounts of DaO funds.

5.3 recommeNdatioNs

status of UN-Habitat country teams

1. The present status of UN-Habitat country team as non-resident (or resident agency depending on the UNRC’s perception) should be kept. It is needless to ‘upgrade’ Country Programme Manager status to international, except in countries with large development or humanitarian/post disaster programmes.

2. The achievements of Country Programme Managers in DaO countries need to be maintained and reinforced. This requires a stronger participation streamlined from Headquarters joining the best from normative and operational divisions to provide new and updated know-how on UN-Habitat’s mandate, strengthening the field staff, enabling them to respond in a better way to the increasing demand. Accordingly, UN-Habitat Headquarters should build the capacity of Country Programme Managers and field staff on normative aspects, certainly lacking. Field enhancement should be followed by a continuous technical support from Headquarters in key United Nations Country Team and Government meetings advocating for priority interventions.

UN-Habitat mandate in dao countries

3. Set up joint programming of agency inputs (resources and activities) to achieve stated and agreed upon results for formulating and implementing One UN programme. UN-Habitat to competently participate in joint programming for enhancing its visibility and sharpening its comparative advantage, support from Headquarters and Regional Offices is essential.

4. If topics of UN-Habitat’s mandate are to be included in the national plan and in the One UN plan (United Nations Development Assistance Framework is now well coordinated with the national plan) they need to be properly exposed from the very beginning with valuable arguments and supporting documents. Headquarters and Regional Offices should support Country Programme Managers and the country office teams on normative and strategic issues related to national priorities to keep high UN-Habitat’s mandate in the preparation of the One UN plan if the agency is to survive in the increasingly competitive DaO set up.

5. In order to respond more professionally to priorities and initiatives identified by the Government, UNRC and United Nations Country Team, UN-Habitat should delegate authority and seed capital to Country Programme Managers from Headquarters core resources to support assessments, studies, workshops, advocacy campaigns, media announcements and others that can justify including in the One UN country plan upcoming issues related to UN-Habitat mandate.

6. In order to raise and maintain the level of advocacy and awareness on its competence in the DaO countries, UN-Habitat should create the National Habitat Committees/National Habitat Fora, preferably managed by national partner institutions and civil society. The objectives of the PSUP project fits perfectly well on this aspect and RTCD should ensure that all pilot, as well as ‘self-started’ DaO countries are considered in the PSUP.


7. To enhance learning and be better prepared for DaO planning and implementation, UN-Habitat Headquarters should systematise DaO experience through the Human Settlements Officers in the different Regional Offices capitalising on information from DaO countries.

One UN-Habitat and needed reforms

8. UN-Habitat Headquarters and Regional Offices should review its structure and working modality to become a One UN-Habitat, complementing the divisions’ tasks in a way that could reach the field with improved know-how, building the capacity of field staff on a systematic way. A One UN-Habitat approach will definitely improve the perception of the agency by Government and UN agencies, supporting UN-Habitat’s mandate within the country needs.

9. UN-Habitat should sharpen recently published policy papers on MTSIP focus areas and mainstream them into One UN plan (in addition to country-specific strategies), so that country programme management teams can make use of them for joint programming with other agencies.

10. Considering the efforts required by the DaO planning and the need to have only one UN-Habitat planning instrument per country, it is recommended to merge the HCPDs with UN-Habitat’s component on DaO. This planning exercise will have to include global programmes and projects emanated from Headquarters, harmonising them with country needs.

11. Considering increasing competition among UN agencies in placing agencies mandate on DaO priority interventions and on DaO funds, UN-Habitat Headquarters and Regional Offices should support the formation of National Urbanization Committees or National Urban Fora position the urban agenda in DaO.

12. The DaO reform process will make considerable demands on UN-Habitat’s way of doing business as part of UN system. The agency should appoint a DaO focal

point at Headquarters, with responsibilities to coordinate, raise awareness among the divisions, monitor the DaO development and provide assistance to DaO countries on the wide scope of implications of the UN DaO reform process. This practice has been adopted by other UN Headquarters and resident agencies at field level have also one staff only dedicated to DaO coordination and monitoring.

13. UN-Habitat Headquarters may consider establishing a ‘two-track’ support system to pilot and ‘self-started’ DaO countries which shall be supported under the DaO reform process: One track to include countries with well-established UN-Habitat teams, who are raising the agency’s visibility in the United Nations Country Team and its working groups, and where there is a good potential for including additional component in the joint programming and obtaining increased allocation of One UN funds. The second track would include countries with limited presence of a Country Programme Manager or country team, supporting with programmatic and timely interventions from Regional Offices in the United Nations Country Team and its working groups, building up the agency intervention in the joint programming and in the DaO process.

UN-Habitat reforms for dao accomplishments

14. Restructure Headquarters and expand Regional Offices to provide programmatic and administrative support to the scope of operational and normative activities undergoing in the region and at country level.

15. UN-Habitat should review how current fragmented procedures negatively affect its participation in the DaO reform process in terms of lack of common and unified administrative, budgetary, accounting and reporting procedures for activities at country level.

16. Using the findings of the review, the agency should establish a unified management and


programme support structure at Headquarters to guide and coordinate its interventions in the DaO countries, aligning them with the efforts of the UN system of agencies to set up the Harmonized Programme and Project Management Guidelines (HPPMG), including Harmonized Approach to Cash Transfer (HACT), cost norms and Standard Basic Agreements (SBA).

One UN fund and funds for dao implementation

17. UN-Habitat should re-structure its approach to pilot and ‘self-starter’ DaO countries to move along this new programmatic and funding trend (the One UN fund) coordinating its core funding and DaO funding in line with the One UN country plan.

18. For competent participation at country level, DaO process requires a critical mass of funds and human resources. UN-Habitat should consolidate funding of country activities from all sources (e.g., MDTF, Foundation earmarked and non-earmarked, AOS, global programmes, etc.) in order to establish complete UN-Habitat country budgets, under a single accounting system.

dao project implementation and reporting

19. UN-Habitat Headquarters, through PSD and UNON should clarify with UNDP recruitment and procurement procedures for projects implemented by UN-Habitat, eliminating current duplication of the steps followed.

20. UN-Habitat should revise the whole project cycle, simplifying the programming, approval and reporting exercise and reducing the number of required documents. Improved interaction between field and Headquarters and at Headquarters will speed support to DaO process, especially where technical and administrative aspects are required.

21. Headquarters should consider programming the Integrated Management Information System (IMIS) to retrieve separately all DaO projects and be able to help monitoring of its implementation.


annexes


consultancy: International consultant (to work in a team of two international consultants)

implemented by: Regional and Technical Cooperation Division (RTCD) and Monitoring and Evaluation Unit

countries to be 6 countries, including field visits to Mozambique, Pakistan,

reviewed Rwanda and Vietnam

duration: 2 work months (for each of the two consultants)

starting date: 7 March 2011

end date: 6 June 2011

sUmmarY

The objective of this assignment for two international consultants is to undertake an internal review of UN-Habitat’s participation in the Delivering as One (DaO) initiative. The goal of the DaO approach, under implementation since 2007 in eight pilot countries, is to strengthen the UN system’s collaboration with Member States in view of real progress towards the fulfilment of the MDGs and creating capacity to coherently address cross-cutting issues, including sustainable development, gender equality and human rights. The review is expected to determine the extent of UN-Habitat’s participation; derive lessons learned; identify and assess strengths, challenges, opportunities; and develop recommendations for a more effective participation. Among other issues, the review will generate a better understanding of the effects and potential of the DaO for UN-Habitat in terms of fund-raising and delivery capacity. The review will focus on Cape Verde, Mozambique, Pakistan, Rwanda, Tanzania and Vietnam, with missions to Mozambique, Pakistan, Rwanda and Vietnam.

1. bacKgroUNd

The Delivering as One (DaO) approach was recommended by the Secretary-General’s High-level Panel on System-wide Coherence in the areas of Development, Humanitarian Assistance and Environment on 9 November 2006. As consequence of the 2005 World Summit, the Panel suggested the establishment of UN Country Teams under the format of The Four Ones: One Leader, One Programme, One Budgetary Framework, and (where appropriate) One Office. This would allow the UN System to strengthen its collaboration with Member States with the aim of obtaining real progress towards the fulfilment of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and creating capacity to coherently address cross-cutting issues, including sustainable development, gender equality and human rights.

On 3 April 2007, the Secretary-General requested the General Assembly to test the DaO approach in a number of pilot countries. The Governments of Albania, Cape Verde, Mozambique, Pakistan, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uruguay and Vietnam volunteered for this purpose and the Secretary-General tasked the UN Development Group (UNDG) to move forward with the piloting exercise. Member States agreed that the pilot experience of the DaO approach should be evaluated to inform future intergovernmental consultations.

Among the expected DaO results are:

• Reduction of costs by minimising overlap and duplication of efforts by using common services for reducing overhead costs and increasing value for money in delivery;

• Alignment of UN activities according to national strategies and priorities;

• Focus on comparative advantage, considering the diversity of mandates and areas of intervention of the UN Agencies;

• Application of a result-oriented programming approach by securing more core funding on

annex I: TeRMs of RefeRenCe


a multi-year programming basis; the DaO should allow reducing fragmentation and competition between UN Agencies, especially in fund-raising, which often results in donor-driven programming and earmarked funding, hence losing the focus of the UN agenda.

While the concerned UN Country Teams self-organised for undertaking the DaO pilot exercise, evaluability assessments were conducted by the United Nations Evaluation Group (UNEG) in 2007 and 2008 focussing on: (a) design and progress of the new processes to improve the quality of planning, (b) define monitoring and evaluation modalities such as indicators, baselines and targets for measuring the results, (c) involvement of stakeholders, adequate use of resources, national ownership and leadership, forms of external aid, etc.

During the evaluability exercise in which UN-Habitat was actively involved, the following underlying critical aspects were identified (some of which have been improved since):

• Lack of adoption of a harmonised strategy in the different countries for implementing the DaO, in particular how to pass gradually from the UN Development Assessment Framework (United Nations Development Assistance Framework) to the One Programme, with joint programming often used as intermediate solution;

• Lack of timeframe alignment between the One Programme and national Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP);

• Lack of capacity and difficulties in ensuring ownership and full participation of national Governments in the implementation of the DaO;

• Lack of integration with other development partners, such as the Bretton Woods institutions;

• Lack of authority delegation of UN agencies’ Headquarters (Headquarters) to country offices to participate in, and contribute to, the DaO more effectively;

• Variations in membership between the different UN Country Teams;

• Complex or inefficient configuration of the Resident Coordinator Offices, in particular without clear separation of roles and responsibilities among the UN Resident Coordinator and the UNDP resident representative;

• Lack of simplification and harmonisation of management and information systems;

• Technical weaknesses in defining SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time-bound) indicators according to principles of Results-Based Management (RBM);

• Lack of capacity for undertaking effective monitoring and evaluation from both the UN system at country level and national Governments;

• No adequate and predictable contributions to the One Fund from multi/bilateral donors;

• Difficulties in determining the ‘right’ UN agency for undertaking planned activities in the DaO and ensure inclusiveness;

• Difficulty in reaching consensus for empowering the Resident Coordinator as the One Leader;

• Lack of integration of the Harmonised Approach to Cash Transfer (HACT) in the One Budgetary Programme mechanism, mainly due to divergence of financial rules and regulations among UN organisations;

• Lack of clarity as to how overhead and transaction costs related to the delivery of UN support can be reduced and how savings on operational cost can accrue to programme budgets; and

• Lack of progress in finding locations that would allow all UN agencies working at country level to move into common premises (i.e., One Office).

The evaluability report suggested that country self-evaluations should be conducted as informal stocktaking reporting exercises to assess progress made against the strategic intent of DaO, record achievements, identify areas for improvement and remaining challenges and, most importantly, distil lessons learned. Accordingly, all eight DaO pilot


countries produced stocktaking reports between 2007 and 2008.

From the end of 2009, country-led evaluations have started and should be concluded by July 2010. Currently, the seven DaO pilot countries are at different stages in this activity with Vietnam the most advanced.

To ensure greater ownership and leadership at country level in evaluating of the DaO approach, collection of relevant information will be required as evidence for the independent evaluation to be conducted starting from 2011. This independent evaluation will focus on lessons learned from the DaO in all pilot countries in a comprehensive manner, and will be carried out according to UNEG Norms and Standards.

The need for an independent evaluation is a specific request of the UN General Assembly, for consideration by Member States, and without prejudice to future intergovernmental decisions. As indicated in the UNEG evaluability report, such exercise will face methodological challenges, such as:

• The most obvious method would be to compare the situation before and after adopting the DaO approach in the respective countries. For this purpose, baseline data need to be defined and collected, which is often not the case;

• Comparing the situation resulting from the DaO with what might have happened without DaO can be perceived as a speculative exercise;

• Since each country context is unique, a comparison between countries which have adopted the DaO approach with countries which have not is problematic and not always feasible;

• Observing noticeable changes in terms of effectiveness requires a timeframe of several years;

• There is a need to focus on results-based indicators, however they were often not well defined and are not SMART.

2. oPPortUNities of tHe deliveriNg as ONe UN

• United Nations agencies work with unity of purpose to support national priorities (a more cohesive and strategic UN at country level).

• The entire management structure of the DaO results in improved understanding of the comparative advantage and capacity of each agency.

• An inclusive process, striving to include resident and non-resident UN agencies that could contribute to national needs within a common planning process, enables the elaboration of a coherent strategy geared towards wider development results rather than limited individual agency mandates.

• A more harmonized approach of the UN’s work with Governments, donors and other stakeholders improves inter-agency communication, knowledge of agency systems and structures as well as mutual understanding (one voice has more impact).

• Enhanced role of the Residence Coordinator.

• Strengthened national leadership and working through common results and financial frameworks.

3. cHalleNges

• The One UN reform relies on the joint efforts of different agencies with unique mandates and specific interests. The fact that agencies continue to pursue their own interests and priorities has led to slow acceptance of the radical reforms required by the DaO approach.

• Modus operandi and added value of different agencies dependent on UN intergovernmental processes and Headquarters often do not provide sufficient support to the One UN reform agenda.

• Donors are yet to provide multi-year predictable financing to the One UN Country programme.

• Constraints on resources, especially for small, under-funded and technical agencies.


• There is a thin line between focus vs. inclusiveness, and maintaining a balance between programme coherence and respecting the programmatic diversity of the UN.

• Interaction with Headquarters is inadequate. Many UN agencies use different systems for their resources and programme management

4. JUstificatioN for a review of UN-Habitat’s ParticiPatioN iN tHe dao

The aim of the DaO initiative is to make the role and contribution of the UN system at country level more relevant, effective and efficient. It is important to point out that the resolutions of the General Assembly contained in the 2007 Triennial Comprehensive Policy Review (TCPR) emphasise that programme countries should have access to and benefit from the full range of mandates and resources of the UN development system. Hence, national Governments should determine which Resident and Non-Resident UN Agencies (RAs/NRAs) best would respond to their specific development needs and priorities.

This aspect is particularly relevant for specialised NRAs such as UN-Habitat whose housing and urban development mandates are generally part of national Governments’ main priorities. UN-Habitat is currently active in six countries of Delivering as One: Cape Verde, Mozambique, Pakistan, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Vietnam. The core problem is often a lack of implementation resources.

According to the assessments carried out so far (the evaluability study, the stocktaking exercise and country led evaluations), there has been significant progress, but there are areas that still need improvement. Various important questions that are of special interest to individual UN agencies have not been addressed, e.g., how the relationships between their country offices and Headquarters are developing (or are to be reshaped) in the light of this new approach.

For small agencies, like UN-Habitat, in order to deepen and consolidate the reform process at country level, it will be important to overcome

a number of structural constraints at both Headquarters and in the country offices. These constraints include:

• Planning and approval processes of work programmes and activities which are currently agency-specific and Headquarters focused, on top of the common UN planning at country level.

• Human resource constraints in terms of limited capacity at the country level to be effective in DaO operations; and resource management, contract modalities etc. which are still agency–specific.

• IT platforms of various agencies are still incompatible, which means elaboration of common monitoring and reporting becomes a difficult and time consuming exercise.

The constraints have affected participation of individual agencies in DaO. However, an increasing number of intergovernmental bodies, the governing bodies and donors of various UN agencies are pushing agencies in the direction of the reform and are requesting progress reports on this on-going initiative.

According to the outcome statement of the intergovernmental meeting of the DaO pilot countries that took place 19-21 October 2009, in Kigali, Rwanda, DaO has provided benefits for achieving better development results through increased national leadership and ownership in the development partnership with the UN system. Experience thus far has confirmed that DaO is better than a fragmented UN development system that existed at the country level prior to its adoption. In the pilot countries there is no going back to doing business in the manner prior to the DaO initiative. It was therefore recommended to maintain the momentum and take forward the process in a strengthened manner to address the challenges.

Other countries have already expressed their willingness to join the DaO initiative, including Benin, Bhutan, the Comoros, Kiribati, Malawi, Papua New Guinea and Uganda. It is likely that more countries will introduce the DaO in coming years, showing that the UN system is indeed changing,


Although there are challenges for UN-Habitat participating in the DaO, it is becoming increasingly clear that a foundation must be laid to fully participate in this initiative. This requires an assessment of UN-Habitat’s participation in the DaO to determine the extent of the involvement; lessons learned; challenges; and recommendations for improved participation. UN-Habitat’s DaO participation needs to be reviewed in six of the eight pilot countries, namely: Cape Verde, Mozambique, Pakistan, Rwanda, Tanzania and Vietnam. In Albania and Uruguay, UN-Habitat has almost no operational activities and thus does not participate actively in the DaO.

5. PUrPose aNd obJectives of tHe review

This review will focus on the current challenges and opportunities of UN-Habitat’s participation in the DaO. The intent is to understand what UN-Habitat should improve or do differently in order to participate more effectively in the DaO. Specific objectives of the review are:

• Evaluate and make recommendations concerning strategic, planning, managerial, operational and monitoring/reporting processes, mechanisms and human/financial resources for more effective and efficient participation of UN-Habitat in the DaO at both at global and national levels.

• Assess the value added of One UN process for UN-Habitat in the six countries, including the integration of the agency’s activities into this process.

• Make a qualitative assessment of the significance of UN-Habitat’s support to the One UN reform agenda.

6. exPected resUlts

The following results are expected:

• Strengths and weaknesses, benefits and constraints, opportunities and threats related to UN-Habitat’s participation to the DaO pilot phase determined and assessed;

• Perceptions and views of national Governments, other UN agencies and development partners concerning UN-Habitat’s role, relevance and performance in the DaO analysed;

• Improved understanding of the value added of the One UN process for UN-Habitat and of the significance of UN-Habitat’s support to the One UN reform agenda;

• Recommendations formulated and a strategic way forward defined for more effective and efficient participation of UN-Habitat in the DaO.

7. metHodologY/activities

Note: The two consultants will agree between them on their respective roles and exact division of labour to deliver the prescribed outputs.

step 1: Preparatory phase

Desk review of existing documentation, such as:

• Report of the High Level Panel on UN System Wide Coherence;

• UN DaO evaluability reports, stocktaking reports, country led evaluation reports and other relevant documentation;

• UN-Habitat strategic and policy documentation (MTSIP, ENOF, Policy/strategic papers, etc.) and country reports (HCPDs, Country Programme Managers annual reports, HCPCs evaluation report September 2010, etc.);

• UN relevant documentation at country level (United Nations Development Assistance Framework, One Programme or Joint Programmes, operational plan, assessments, strategies, etc.);

• PRSPs, national development agendas and (sectoral) strategic plans.

• UN-Habitat will make some of these documents available. However, the documents that UN-Habitat does not have will be obtained by the consultants through appropriate channels.

• Based on the desk review and in consultation with UN-Habitat Headquarters and concerned country offices, the consultants will prepare


an inception report to be approved by RTCD/ROAAS. The inception report should include:

• Clear approach and working methodology;

• Detailed activity plan, including for field visits;

• Preliminary list of key stakeholders to be interviewed;

• Review questions and draft semi-structured questionnaire;

• Annotated table of contents of the review report.

step 2: country visits

The consultants will visit the following four of the selected pilot countries: Mozambique, Pakistan, Rwanda, and Vietnam. Each consultant will visit two countries for 1 week each (2 weeks in-country work in total for each consultant). The purpose of the country missions is to gather primary information through interviews and collected documentation.

Key stakeholders to be interviewed include, among others:

• National Government, in particular UN-Habitat counterparts;

• Other UN agencies’ representatives or focal points with knowledge of UN-Habitat work at country level (participation in a United Nations Country Team and/or UN PMT meeting should be considered);

• UN Resident Coordinator, and other RC Office staff (such as NRA Coordinator and other key staff dealing with the DaO);

• A wide range of multi/bilateral development partners, including those contributing to the One Fund or knowledgeable of UN-Habitat work at country level;

• Representatives of Civil Society Organisations working with UN-Habitat;

• UN-Habitat Programme Managers.

step 3: internal review at regional offices and Headquarters levels

After compiling the information collected at country level, and following a bottom-up logic,

the consultants will carry out interviews at the level of the responsible UN-Habitat Regional Offices dealing with the six pilot countries under review, respectively, to, among other aspects:

• Assess the level of understanding of the DaO initiative, seizing the existing views and opinions of both the substantive (technical) and programme management (administrative/finance) officers;

• Identify aspects which need to be addressed in order to speed up the decision/managerial flow and related administrative procedures and improve the agency’s performance at country level;

• Evaluate Headquarters’s support to the country level.

Similarly, the views of different departments and key managers at Headquarters shall be analysed, especially those dealing with UN-Habitat’s administration, finance, monitoring & evaluation, and strategic & organisational aspects.

step 4: first draft and internal discussion

After analysing, harmonising and packaging all collected information, the consultants will prepare a draft report to be circulated and reviewed internally.

A one-day workshop will be organised in Nairobi, UN-Habitat Headquarters, during which the report will be presented (in form of a PowerPoint presentation) and discussed.

Comments, views and recommendations resulting from the discussions will be taken into account by the consultants and integrated into the final report.

step 5: final phase

The final draft report is prepared and circulated electronically for a last review by all concerned stakeholders.

The report is finalised and officially submitted to UN-Habitat.


6. KeY PriNciPles

During the review exercise, the following principles should be respected:

• No duplication of efforts with completed country-led evaluations and other independent evaluations that are on-going. The study should take advantage of the evaluability work, and evaluations already carried out.

• Ensure independence and credibility of the review exercise by adhering to UNEG Norms and Standards.

• Validate and cross-check methods used and information obtained from different sources.

7. oUtPUts/deliverables

The following outputs are expected from this exercise (in chronological order):

output 1: inception report

This output is expected to contain:

• Clearly defined strategy and working methodology, including a detailed timeline of review activities;

• Preliminary list of key stakeholders to be in-terviewed;

• Questionnaires for interviewing key stake-holders at the country level, at Regional Offices and at Headquarters;

• Annotated table of contents of the review report.

output 2: draft report and PowerPoint presentation of findings and preliminary recommendations

The draft report should contain the findings from desk study, country missions and UN-Habitat-internal interviews, as well as draft

recommendations derived from the review. A PowerPoint presentation of not more than 25 slides, well structured, illustrated and animated, is to be submitted together with the draft report (the UN-Habitat PowerPoint template will be provided to the consultants).

output 3: final report

The final report should incorporate the review comments from key stakeholders, especially the one-day workshop in Nairobi, and is expected to:

• Analyse strengths and weaknesses, benefits and constraints, opportunities and threats related with UN-Habitat’s participation to the DaO pilot phase;

• Take into account perceptions and views of national Governments, other UN Agencies and development partners concerning UN-Habitat’s role in the DaO;

• Provide specific recommendations and a strategic way forward for undertaking strategic, managerial and operational changes in order to obtain a more effective and efficient involvement of the agency in DaO in the near future.

8. timeframe

The review will be carried out during a period of two work months spread out over three months from March to May 2011. The following draft work plan refers to the estimated time needed by each of the two consultants to carry out the work for each methodological step/activity:


Step Acvitity Estimated duration (weeks)

Mar Apr May Jun

1 Preparatory phase 1

2 Country visits 3

3 Internal review at Regional Offices and HQ levels 1

4 First draft and internal discussion 2

5 Final phase 1

TOTAL 8

9. reQUired QUalificatioNs

For this review, UN-Habitat seeks to recruit two senior international consultants with the following qualifications:

• Advanced university degree in a discipline related to UN-Habitat’s mandate

• A minimum of 15 years of experience in international development

• Profound knowledge of the UN system

• Experience of UN-Habitat’s work, organisa-tional set-up and mandate

• Relevant experience in the countries to be reviewed

• Excellent analytical and communication skills

• Fluency in spoken and written English (for the consultant visiting Pakistan ad Vietnam) and English, French and Portuguese (for the consultant visiting Mozambique and Rwanda)

10. iNstitUtioNal arraNgemeNts / sUPervisioN / travel

The consultants will report to the Director of the Regional and Technical Cooperation Division (RTCD), in close collaboration with the Regional Offices for Africa and the Arab States (ROAAS) and Asia and the Pacific (ROAP).

One consultant will visit Pakistan and Vietnam, and, if required, the Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific in Fukuoka; the other consultant will visit Mozambique, Rwanda and the Regional Office for Africa and the Arab States in Nairobi. Each mission will be approximately one week. UN-Habitat will provide air tickets and DSA.


UN-Habitat HeadQUarters:

• alabaster, graham: Section Chief, Human Settlements Finance Division

• badiane, alioune: Ag, Director, RTCD

• dzikus, andre: Section Chief, HS Finance Division

• evans, Neil: Programme Support Division

• gebre-eghziabler, axumite: Director, Global Division

• Hussein, maharufa: GUO, Monitoring and Research Division

• lópez moreno, eduardo: Monitoring and Research Division

• mioch, Jaana: Assistant to the Deputy Executive Director of UN-Habitat

• mutizwa, Naison: Senior Policy Advisor to the Executive Director

• ondari, felista: Programme Support Division

UN-Habitat regioNal office for africa aNd tHe arab states:

• guiebo, Joseph: Senior Human Settlements Officer in ROAAS for Cape Verde

• mbye, doudou: Senior Human Settlements Officer in ROAAS for Rwanda

• spaliviero, mathias: Human Settlements Officer in ROAAS for Mozambique

• sulaiman, Jawed: Programme Manager Officer in ROAAS for Cape Verde, Mozambique, Rwanda and Tanzania

UN-Habitat regioNal office for asia aNd tHe Pacific:

• lankatilleke, lalith: Senior Human Settlements Officer

• meeuwissen, Jan: Senior Human Settlements Officer

• Noda, toshi: Director ROAP

• radford, chris: Senior Human Settlements Officer

• rosales, lowie: Human Settlements Officer

• sato, mariko: Chief, Bangkok Office

cape verde: (contacted by e-mail):

• silva, Janise: UN-Habitat Coordinator in Cape Verde

• tall, mansour: UN-Habitat Programme Manager in Senegal, covering also Cape Verde

mozambique:

• costa, rui: Chief Executive Officer; Fund for Housing Foment

• dos santos teresa abreu, casimiro: Deputy General Director; National Institute for Disaster Management

• lópez, lola: Non Resident Agencies Coordination Officer; United Nations

• magaia, silva: UN-Habitat Programme Manager; UN-Habitat

• mason, Jocelyn: Country Director; United Nations Development Programme

• matos benesse, angelo augusto: National Director of Buildings; Ministry of Public Works and Housing

• Nhachungue, erasmo: Director of Planning and Studies; Ministry for the Coordination of Environmental Affairs

• rafael, orlanda: National Director for Municipality Development; Ministry of State Administration

• senda, ana isabel: National Director for Territorial Planning; Ministry for the Coordination of Environmental Affairs

• topping, Jennifer: Resident Coordinator; United Nations

annex II: lIsT of PeoPle InTeRVIeWeD


Pakistan: (contacted by e-mail)

• moghaddam, siamak: Country Programme Manager

rwanda:

• bigenimana, emmanuel: National Project Coordinator; Youth Project; UN-Habitat.

• fall, cheikh: Deputy Representative UNFPA; Rwanda

• Habimana, andre: Head of UNIDO operations; UNIDO

• lootsma, auke: Country Director; UNDP

• Nsengiyumua, Jacques: National Project Coordinator; WAC II Project; UN-Habitat

• sevumba, monique: UN-Habitat Programme Manager; UN-Habitat

• Uwamahoro, felix: National Project Coordinator; Upgrading of Slums Zones of the cities of the Western Province (AQUPO); UN-Habitat

• Uwera, solange: Non Resident Agencies Coordination Analyst; Resident Coordinator Office; UN

tanzania:

• badhari, ritesh: UNRC Office; DaO focal Point

• chamberlain, louise: Dep. UNDP Director

• gibbons, Helga: UNRC Office; DaO focal point

• mutashabirwa, Phillemon: UN-Habitat Programme Manager

vietnam:

• alwin Nijholt: UN M+E; RBM advisor

• caroline den dulk: Communications Manager; One UN Office

• do thi minh Huyen: UN-Habitat

• do tu lan: Deputy Director; Urban Development Authority

• francois reybet-degat: Head of Resident Coordinator Office; Senior Sdvisor on UN reform (UN Resident Coordinator John Hendra was out of the country)

• le thi mai Huong: UN-Habitat Project Manager

• mags gaynor: Development Cooperation; Embassy of Ireland

• Nguyen Quang: UN-Habitat Programme Manager

• Nguyen tran Nam: Deputy Minister; Ministry of Construction

• Nguyen Yen Hai: Deputy Director General; Ministry of Planning and Investment

• Nong thi Hong Hanh: Head of Division; Ministry of Planning and Investment

• Peter d’Huys: Development Cooperation; Embassy of Belgium; CoChair of LMDG

• Pham Khan toan: Dir General; Ministry of Construction

• Pham thi thu Huong: UN-Habitat Chief Technical Advisor; MEK-WATSAN

• rie vejs Kjeldgaard: ILO Representative

• setsuko Yamazaki: UNDP Country Director

• tran thi van: UNFPA Assistant Representative

• tran xuan bach : UN-Habitat Project Manager

• vu Nguyet minh : UN-Habitat.

• vu thi vinh: Vice Secretary General; Association of Cities of Vietnam

• Yuriko shoji: FAO Representative


1. deliveriNg as oNe iN caPe verde

1.1 background

The Republic of Cape Verde, with Praia as its capital, is a small archipelago of 10 islands located at 455 km from the West African Coast. It has an area of 4,033 km² and a population of 492,000 inhabitants. Cape Verdean’s has a life expectancy at birth of 71 years and a literacy rate of 82 per cent. Its economy is essentially tertiary, with trade and services sectors occupying over 70 per cent of the domestic production.

From an administrative standpoint, Cape Verde is divided into 22 municipalities with 24 cities. In urban areas concentrates 62 per cent of the population with approximately one quarter in Praia. At country level, only 46.9 per cent of the population has access to public water supply and 50 per cent has access to an improved sewage disposal system. The majority of municipalities still do not have the instruments and the mechanism for proper urban management and the country lacks a proper land registration system.

UN-Habitat in cape verde: The UN-Habitat office in Cape Verde started in 2009, after the Delivering as One (DaO) was initiated. For that, a Habitat Programme Manager (Country Programme Manager) was nominated (the Country Programme Manager for Senegal was nominated for Cape Verde accumulating both countries) and it was recruited a country coordinator based in Cape Verde. The country coordinator participates in DaO meetings in the United Nations Country Team and others, and works together with national partners on the planning and implementation of the projects. The Country Programme Manager, based in Senegal, assists at key meetings in Cape Verde and provides the necessary support from Dakar.

The entry point of UN-Habitat in Cape Verde was the Participatory Slum Upgrading Programme

(PSUP) which is financed by UN-Habitat with contribution from the European Commission, allowing UN-Habitat access to the One UN Programme with an urban governance project financed by the DaO.

1.2 delivering as one in cape verde

Planning: With the collaboration of 20 UN agencies (six resident and 14 non-resident agencies) it was prepared the ‘One Programme in Cape Verde’. The programme is divided in four thematic areas being: (i) Good governance; (ii) Promotion of growth and economic opportunities; (iii) Environment, energy, disasters, prevention and response; and (iv) Human capital and social protection. The gender component is a cross-cutting aspect that has been mainstreamed in most interventions. The total estimated budget for the One Programme was USD 70.3 millions and donor contribution reached USD 40.8 millions.

The UN-Habitat coordinator in Cape Verde, with the assistance of the Country Programme Manager, made great effort advocating for UN-Habitat mandate inside the United Nations Country Team and with Government partners. Now, the agency is implementing activities for a total of USD 588,500 including USD 88,500 from the PSUP project and USD 500,000 from DaO funds implementing the ‘Local Urban Development Programme in the framework of the One UN in Cape Verde’. The UN-Habitat component in the Medium-Term Strategic and Institutional Plan (MTSIP) is related to focus area 2: Participatory Planning Management and Governance. This intervention was included in the Habitat Country Programme Document (HCPD) for Cape Verde.

The Government of Cape Verde has been working on defining an integrated urban policy and operational strategy which will act as a guide for better living conditions in the cities. Accordingly, the Government of Cape Verde in partnership with UN-Habitat intends to produce this urban policy

annex III: CounTRY InfoRMaTIon


and the respective strategy in the next cycle of the United Nations Development Assistance Framework (UNDAF) 2012-2016. For the next United Nations Development Assistance Framework, on the ‘National Programme on Urban Development and Cities Empowerment’ have also been identified the following priorities: (i) Territorial planning, urban planning and management; (ii) Mapping, registration and information technologies; (iii) Housing, rehabilitation and urban sanitation; and (iv) Urban security.

The DaO planning exercise with Government counterparts and UN agencies facilitated the dialogue and the recognition of UN-Habitat mandate strengthening the working relations with the Resident Coordinator office and sister agencies. Taking advantage of this situation, UN-Habitat could draw a plan to further advocate on the agency mandate and capability.

The Government of Cape Verde is complaining on the large number of small projects included in the One Programme and is claiming the need to concentrate in the next United Nations Development Assistance Framework cycle on more substantive aspects which can add value to the development process in the country. For UN-Habitat, with only one staff in the field, to deal with more policy and strategic aspects becomes a great challenge; however it is necessary to respond to the country demand.

funding: In total, UN-Habitat requested USD 1.1 million to implement its DaO component and from 2009 to 2011 received a total of USD 500,000 what can be considered a good proportion considering its late integration and the lack of pre-DaO presence in the country. Necessary to mention that with the international crisis, donors declined some funds for the DaO programme what increased competition among agencies for the available funds.

Cape Verde presents a good example where core funds (from PSUP programme) in relative small amount (USD 88,500) habilitated UN-Habitat to implement activities under DaO and leverage funds in the amount of USD 500,000. This modality of ‘seed’ or ‘in-kind contribution’ funds

should be considered for enlarging the agency portfolio.

For increasing UN-Habitat capability, it would be important to strengthen the local office investing on its human resources by upgrading and enlarging the staff. The load of work on programmatic and substantive aspects, the time spent on meetings (30 per cent of the coordinator’s time) and the perspectives on the new United Nations Development Assistance Framework cycle justifies it.

implementation: Coordination of implementation with national partners is well established; however there are improvements that can be done for a better coordination with other UN agencies, especially on procurement processes and on timing of implementation. Joint planning has not been reflected on a joint implementation. UN-Habitat has spent 80 per cent of the allocated funds what represents a good delivery. If the agency enlarges its programme, would be necessary to recruit relevant assistance.

1.3 conclusion and recommendations

conclusion 1: With the DaO, the work with the Government and other UN agencies have been facilitated with a unique platform for planning, coordination and implementation what facilitates UN-Habitat works at all levels gaining better recognition of its mandate and helping the expansion of its portfolio.

recommendation 1: This good performance needs to be maintained and reinforced, for what is required to keep pumping from Headquarters new and updated know-how on relevant human settlement’s topics strengthening the field staff and enabling them to respond in a better way to the increasing demand.

conclusion 2: In the next United Nations Development Assistance Framework cycle, the Government will push for a change requesting UN agencies to concentrate more on substantive activities adding value to the development in the country.


recommendation2: UN-Habitat from its Headquarters should implement an intense capacity building of its field staff on normative aspects. This field enhancement should also be followed by a continuous technical support from Headquarters assisting to key United Nations Country Team and Government meetings. UN agencies and Government needs to see that behind the local staff exists a full agency supporting with relevant normative and operational experiences.

conclusion 3: During the DaO period in Cape Verde and other pilot countries, a vast amount of field experiences has been accumulated and it has not been shared among field offices.

recommendation 3: UN-Habitat Headquarters should systematise DaO experience through the HSOs in the different Regional Offices capitalising information from DaO countries. That information should be made available to staff in different divisions in Headquarters and also among pilot DaO countries, self started DaO countries and others. Such exchange of information could help on learning from each other and be better prepared for DaO planning and implementation. The DaO modality will definitely be expanded due to increased interest from Governments. At Headquarters could also be advisable to have a focal point for DaO countries coordinating at Headquarters DaO needs and providing assistance to respective countries. This practice has been adopted by other UN Headquarters and big agencies at field level have also one staff only dedicated to DaO coordination.

conclusion 4: DaO funds at country level have not been enough for covering all identified projects and activities, and this implied that projects are cut and UN agencies starts arguing for a larger portion on the available funds. At critical moments, the UN system has favoured with DaO funds the UN agencies that contribute with core funding for their DaO activities.

recommendation 4: In order to minimise the cut on UN-Habitat allocations for DaO components, it would be important to strategise the use of available core funding from Headquarters and would also be necessary to initiate a fundraising

exercise that can provide seed funds for UN-Habitat activities in DaO countries allowing the leverage of larger amounts of DaO funds. In Cape Verde is under preparation a fundraising exercise for the new programme on Urban Development and Cities Empowerment that should be supported by Headquarters.

2. deliveriNg as oNe iN moZambiQUe

2.1 background

The Republic of Mozambique has an area of 799,000 km² and a population of 21.8 million inhabitants with a population growth rate of 1.9 per cent. Mozambicans have a life expectancy at birth of 51.7 years and a literacy rate of 38.7 per cent, and is considered one of the sub-Saharan African countries with the strongest economy presenting an economic growth averaging 8 per cent in the last ten years; however, it remains among the poorest countries in the world with 65 per cent of the population living in rural areas and mostly depending on subsistence agriculture.

From an administrative standpoint, Mozambique is divided into 11 provinces, of which the capital Maputo is one. Urban areas accommodate 35 per cent of its population. At country level, only 43 per cent of the population has access to public water supply and 32 per cent has access to an improved sewage disposal system. In total there are 43 municipalities in great need of improving their institutional capacity. From a housing perspective, Maputo, in 34 years cemented its periphery building 200,000 self build new informal houses in cement block and iron sheets substituting the old reed wall and thatch roof. The challenge now is to formalise the informal settlements and provide the necessary infrastructure and services in the cities.

UN-Habitat in mozambique: UN-Habitat has implemented projects since the eighties; however, only after the year 2000 consolidated an office and had a continuous and sustainable increase of portfolio with projects reaching now USD 7.3 million and a team of ten staff. The total number


of Delivering as One (DaO) financed projects are three, with value of USD 4,126,500 and the total number of core funds DaO financed projects are

Project summary in mozambique:

Project title Objective Source of finance

Main Partners Budget (USD)

Interventions for reducing vulnerability to floods and cyclones

Support innovative and sustainable mitigation interventions for reducing vulnerability to floods

Core UN-Habitat

EC, ECHO, INGoverning Council, CEDH-UEM

502,800

UN joint programme on environment mainstreaming and adaptation to climate change

Reduce risks associated to climate change as a contribution for poverty reduction efforts in vulnerable areas and semi-arid areas of Mozambique

DaO funds

Spain, UNDP, FAO, UNEP, UNIDO, MAE, MICOA, DNA

1,180,000

Cities and climate change initiative

Contribute to the achievement of MDG Goal 7, integrating principles of sustainable development into country policies and programmes

Core UN-Habitat

Maputo Municipal Council

260,700

UN joint programme support to decentralization and capacity building for participatory planning, budgeting and gender mainstreaming

Strengthen municipality capacity for participatory planning, monitoring and evaluation

DaO funds

Spain, ANAMM, UNDP, UNCDF, UNIFEM, UNICEF, City Councils

1,226,500

UN Joint programme on disaster risk reduction and emergency preparedness

Strengthen national capacities to respond and to mitigate the humanitarian impact of emergencies on vulnerable populations

DaO funds

UNICEF, UNDP, UNFPA, UNIFEM, MICOA, MAE

1,720,000

Capacity building of Mozambique’s Red Cross on shelter issues

Contribute to the improvement of human settlements in areas prone to natural disasters in Mozambique

Core UN-Habitat

Spain, UNV, CVM

50,000

Participatory slum upgrading and prevention programme (PSUP)

Contribute to achieving the Millennium Development Goals and to urban poverty alleviation

Core UN-Habitat

EC, MICOA, DINAPOT, ANAMM, CEDH-UEM

140,000

Water for African cities II – Beira and Dondo

Improve sustainable access to water and sanitation for poor households living in urban areas, with particular emphasis on women, children and the elderly

Core UN-Habitat

Spain, MOPH, DNA, CRA, FIPAG, Municipalities of Beira and Dondo

1,500,000

Supporting local mitigation interventions for reducing vulnerability to cyclones and earthquakes in Nampula and Manica provinces

Identify and test innovative small-scale mitigation interventions for cyclones and earthquakes through participatory approach and local capacity building

Core UN-Habitat

EC, ECHO, MAE, INGoverning Council, MOPH, MICOA, NGO OIKOS

465,900

Empowering urban women entrepreneurs through housing development and access to land rights

Improve living conditions of urban women entrepreneurs by supporting housing development and ownership of land and property

Core UN-Habitat

Spain, MAE, MOPH, MIMAS, Municipality of Manica

228, 862

seven with value of USD 3,148,262. The following table presents the projects, its objective and main partners:


2.2 delivering as one in mozambique

Planning: The DaO in Mozambique has been operational since 2007 and its first cycle is finalising in 2011. On its planning and implementation collaborates with 24 UN agencies (nine resident, seven non-resident with office and staff in-country and eight covered from abroad). This first cycle is divided in 13 joint programmes and UN-Habitat is collaborating in three of them, being: environment mainstreaming; decentralisation; and disaster risk reduction.

UN-Habitat in Mozambique has limitation of staff and limitation of resources, and compared to UN resident agencies, its active participation in all technical and managerial meetings is demanding on human resources and stressful when advocating for UN-Habitat mandate or negotiating relevant funds for programme implementation. The numbers of planning meetings to be attended on the UN side are many (United Nations Country Team, where decisions are taken; programme management team, where programmatic actions are developed; focal groups, where different agencies coordinates their activities; retreats, where all agencies coordinate, identifies priorities and decide on inter-sectoral aspects; and others) this, is in addition to the meetings with Government. If the agency is not present in the meeting does not have the possibility for submitting and advocating for the proposal, consequently will be left out when the decision is taken and will remain without the possibility for requesting funds.

The strength of UN-Habitat in DaO is on its specific mandate, which is not available in other UN agencies; however, considering that the planning exercise falls under the Country Programme Manager and being the only permanent representative of the agency in-country makes it difficult if not impossible to qualify in all areas of the agency mandate. The planning exercise is very demanding on policy aspects and on technical knowhow and the Country Programme Manager in the UN country team (United Nations Country Team) and in meetings with Government needs to convince UN agencies and ministries on the

identified priorities and on innovative and feasible solutions in order to be considered as a priority in the DaO plan.

Behind the Country Programme Manager there is a full agency with normative and operational divisions, however the required support with updated normative and strategic information does not reach the field or what reaches is not necessarily applicable. UN-Habitat from Headquarters and ROAAS should provide the Country Programme Manager with updated knowhow on permanent basis, and in key meetings should assist with expert’s presence in order to cover the demanding planning tasks. Only with a joint Headquarters/ROAAS-field intervention, the agency will properly advocate in front of other UN agencies and ministries for including the agency mandate in a continuous and more prominent way in the DaO plan.

The voice of the Country Programme Manager in planning, coordination and decision taking meetings, although is equally considered, has less power than the voices of resident agencies. Many decisions, especially on priorities and on distribution of funds, are taken off meetings in the absence of small agencies. DaO has allowed UN-Habitat to be closer to the Resident Coordinator office, but it is not a guarantee of being fully considered. It is also a constraint that in the steering committee, where final planning and financial decisions are taken, Non-resident Agencies (NRAs) are not part of it, reducing the possibilities of advocacy. What some NRA’s Headquarters are doing, although could be questionable, is to lobby from Headquarters in order to obtain a more prominent position in terms of activities and funding.

Building and maintaining good relations with other UN agencies is fundamental, especially with the Resident coordinator office and other big resident agencies. Relations in Mozambique have been strengthened with technical departments of FAO, UNICEF, WFP, UNIDO and UNDP what facilitates the Country Programme Manager work.


The joint programming in DaO, in general, has benefited UN-Habitat providing higher visibility among UN agencies and enlarging its presence among national partners strengthening its previous achievements. However, it has been difficult to open new areas of intervention within the agency mandate.

Although the planning exercise is done with close participation of the Government, this does not mean that all Government departments are aware of the DaO modality in country, therefore there are still departments that approach the UN-Habitat office requesting funds and assistance disregarding the DaO approach. During the field mission for the DaO evaluation several national partners were visited to understand their perception on the DaO and the contribution received from UN-Habitat. What was found in most of them was limited understanding on the DaO modality and in most of the cases they requested bilateral assistance as in the ‘old’ times: the Ministry of State Administration requested technical assistance to build the capacity of their ten new municipalities and prepare strategic plans; the Ministry of Public Works and Housing, through the Fund for Housing Promotion, requested assistance for setting up the housing fund strategy; the National Institute for Disaster Management requested assistance in drafting the resettlement strategy; the municipality of Matola also wanted assistance and so forth… what clearly indicates that ‘One’ national plan for the UN assistance was not interiorised in the Government sphere and it is only known by those that are directly involved in project implementation or are part of the higher levels at the counterpart ministry for DaO (Ministry of Foreign Affairs).

the new dao cycle: The United Nations Development Assistance Framework (United Nations Development Assistance Framework) for the period 2012-2015 was recently approved and is the result of a highly participatory planning process with a continuous partnership between the Government of Mozambique and the UN. The United Nations Development Assistance Framework was based on the Action Plan for Poverty Reduction (PARP) for 2011-2014 as well

as on the country-led DaO evaluation done in 2010. The new United Nations Development Assistance Framework is organized around three focus areas: (i) The economic: aiming to diminish the economic disparities, improving productive capacities, and reducing vulnerability to natural disasters; (ii) The social: aiming reducing inequality of access to services for vulnerable groups; and (iii) The governance: deepening democracy and improving governance at the local level.

Among the three focus areas, there are eight outcomes being: (i) Vulnerable groups (with a particular focus on women) demand and ensure production and productivity in the primary sector in order to increase food security; (ii) Vulnerable groups access new opportunities for improved income and livelihoods; (iii) Sustainable and effective management of natural resources and disaster risk reduction benefit all people in Mozambique, particularly the most vulnerable; (iv) equitable provision of quality and essential social services ensure improved wellbeing for all vulnerable groups; (v) Vulnerable groups demand, access and use quality and equitably delivered social services; (vi) Strengthened democratic governance systems and processes guarantee equity, rule of law and respect of human rights at all levels; (vii) People in Mozambique participate in shaping and monitoring a transparent and equitable national development agenda; and (viii) Government and civil society provide coordinated, equitable and integrated services at decentralized level.

For implementing United Nations Development Assistance Framework 2012-2015, it is required a total budget of USD 735 million out of which 20 per cent is expected to be covered from DaO funds, 25 per cent from regular resources (from UN agencies) and the difference from other bilateral arrangements. Within the eight outcomes, UN-Habitat’s mandate could be easily included and planned its participation in outcomes 3, 4, 5 and 7 expecting a total of ten million dollars from DaO funds.

The Government focus in this new DaO cycle is in obtaining better programmatic coordination and


more effective implementation. For Government, the value of the DaO programme, compared to what they obtain from other sources of support, is the neutral position of the UN, the value of the technical expertise of agencies and the global advice.

funding: The funds for the present UN programme in Mozambique has approximately 25 per cent coming from core funds from UN agencies, 65 per cent from agencies’ bilateral arrangements and around ten per cent is coming from the DaO trust fund, which is approximately USD 70 million distributed in the 13 joint programmes. The trust fund has covered almost all joint programmes and UN-Habitat received up to now USD 2,750,000 from DaO, what represents 3.9 per cent from the total planned for DaO.

UN-Habitat was able to leverage a reasonable proportion of funds from DaO due to: (i) the good performance obtained in-country on previously implemented projects; (ii) the considerable number of project staff already recruited (ten staff); and (iii) because was able to contribute with non-DaO funds to the DaO joint programmes. This UN-Habitat contribution was possible including in the DaO plan bilateral and Headquarters funds allocated to other related projects under implementation (financed by EC, ECHO, Spain and others).

Obtaining DaO funds is very competitive, having on one side small NRAs that want to initiate or increase their presence in country and on the other, the big resident agencies who have large number of technical staff and consolidated programmes and do not want to lose their predominance. Within this scenario, large portion of the DaO funds are generally pre-distributed before arriving to the fund distribution meeting. Although it is early to say, at country level it was indicated that donors will probable diminish their contributions to the DaO trust fund during next years, what will increase the competition among UN agencies.

Another problem with the DaO trust fund is that generally the disbursements are erratic and depend very much on donors deciding to

contribute with some funds. When this happens, a series of meetings are organised (UNCT to coordinate, PMT to prepare the plan for the new available funds, lead agencies to work the specifics for each joint programme, then back to the PMT for consolidation of the submissions and back to the United Nations Country Team and Government for taking the decision). The whole process can take two to three months and it is a very stressful and time-consuming process, which has to be repeated again when more funds are allocated making the management of the agency budget very difficult. Necessary to mention, that in order to have access to new funds, the agency have to prove delivery according to what was planned for previous allocations. This is challenge by the slow pace that takes approvals for recruitment and procurements.

implementation: Depending on the way the joint programme was designed and the lead agency coordination, there is less or more joint implementation. In two joint programmes where UN-Habitat is participating (disaster risk reduction and environmental mainstreaming) synergies are high and joint implementation with different agencies contributing in their areas of specialisation is undergoing according to what was planned. This is not always the pattern and needs to be recognised, as in many joint programmes there is joint planning, but individual implementation.

UN-Habitat implementation in terms of disbursements is on track with approximately 80 per cent of the DaO funds committed, however on real field works, the environmental mainstreaming project in Chicualacuala is delay, estimating the need for an additional year to finalise implementation. This delay may affect UNIDO and FAO with whom UN-Habitat has joint implementation in some activities.

The most important bottle neck on implementation refers to delays on recruitments and procurements. Field office follows the procedures as established by UN-Habitat/UNON, then all the documentation goes for approval to Headquarters, where it is revised by the Senior


HSO, then it goes to the PMO, from there to PSD/UNON for final approval and once the approval arrives to UNDP at country level for issuing the contract or paying the vendor, the full process starts again with UNDP putting on hold the authorisation received from UNON and repeating the whole process of verification through internal UNDP procurement or recruitment system, including CAP and other internal mechanisms. That process is done after receiving the authorisation from UNON and it is obviously very slow (not UNDP priority) remaining pending for weeks and months and applying UNDP own system that sometimes challenge what is approved by UNON. In addition, UNDP charges UN-Habitat for repeating the process that was already done by UN-Habitat/PSD/UNON. The only document that is accepted by UNDP is the Agreements of Cooperation which is processed without verification or additional approvals in UNDP.


conclusion 1: The load on DaO planning is over the shoulders of the Country Programme Manager and this is a very time demanding task as well as stressful due to the technical requirements in a variety of topics covered by the agency mandate.

recommendation 1: In the case of Mozambique, where UN-Habitat has been implementing a reasonable portfolio of projects delivering over a million USD per year and existing the possibilities of increasing that amount, it is recommended to enlarge the team of permanent staff in the UN-Habitat Maputo office with two or three additional staff in relevant specialisations, this in addition to the existing project staff. With such strengthening of the office, the participation in DaO planning could be improved with stable and specialised technical staff, similarly to what is done by the resident agencies where different specialists participate in the planning process providing higher technical inputs and advocating for their mandates in Government and UN meetings. Enlarging the permanent staff in the office could also improve monitoring and assistance to projects during implementation.

conclusion 2: The support provided to DaO in Mozambique is coming from ROAAS with very limited or no support provided by divisions in Headquarters. At field level there is an increased demand on new and renovated knowhow to advocate for more participation of the agency in new areas of intervention as well as on innovative ways to assist the country needs. Without a continuous improvement on normative aspects it would be difficult to increase the portfolio of implementation.

recommendation 2: UN-Habitat in Headquarters/RTCD/ROAAS should streamline its structure and working modality to become a One UN-Habitat, complementing division’s tasks in a way that could reach the field with improved knowhow building the capacity of field staff on a systematic way. Headquarters, especially global division should also do field missions to assist DaO planning advocating in UN and Government meetings for the agency mandate presenting strategic and innovative approaches that can convince on UN-Habitat interventions. Headquarters’s presence also helps in understanding that behind the field team there is a whole agency support.

conclusion 3: In the new DaO cycle for the period 2012-2015, UN-Habitat field staff managed to include interventions for USD 10 million, what is 250 per cent more than the DaO funds obtained in the first cycle. Having them included in the DaO plan does not mean automatic prioritisation and funding.

recommendation 3: Considering the potential cutting on DaO funds and the increasing competition among UN agencies it is recommended to strengthen the presence of Headquarters in the field becoming more visible in UN and Government key meetings at country level, as well as strengthening the presence in UNDG in New York and other venues where the DaO main decisions are taken in relation to policy, priorities and distribution of DaO funds. Alternative ways of keeping presence in country and in other forums through letters, communications, phone calls and others could also be considered.


conclusion 4: The HCPD and the planning for DaO were done more or less on parallel; however were produced two different documents and two different planning instruments for the same country and same Government counterpart, both demanding time and effort that falls on the same staff: the Country Programme Manager.

recommendation 4: Considering the efforts required by the DaO planning and the need to have only one UN-Habitat planning instrument per country, in future it is recommended to merge the HCPD with the UN-Habitat component on DaO, and make them coincide on the period that will cover. Doing so, will avoid duplication of planning instruments, the DaO and the HCPD cycle will be the same and the coordination with Government counterparts will be over one instrument which is already institutionalised at country level. Rationalisation of documents could also apply to reporting, monitoring and others that in many cases duplicates in content, but covers different periods or use different formats.

conclusion 5: It is clear that contributing with core funding for DaO implementation helps in leveraging larger amounts of DaO funds and it is also clear that potential core funds from Headquarters are totally unknown in the field, thus it is impossible to plan in advance, although every year a certain number of projects are implemented with core funding.

recommendation 5: Regarding core funding, would be ideally if a forecast could be done for DaO countries in order to facilitate planning and negotiation at field level. It would also be good if core funding allocated to projects could reach the country aligned with the DaO plan and coordinated from Headquarters with the DaO mechanisms of implementation.

conclusion 6: Although agreements with UNDP stipulates that for project implementation UN-Habitat will use its own rules and regulations for recruitment and procurement, at field level UNDP does not recognize PSD/UNON authorizations and put those authorisations on hold until UNDP repeats the recruitment and procurement process using UNDP rules and

regulations. Up to now, Country Programme Managers and S/HSO have tried to mediate with UNDP without results. If accountability on project implementation is with UN-Habitat, then only the UN-Habitat /UNON procedures should prevail. recommendation: UN-Habitat Headquarters, through PSD/UNON should clarify with UNDP how recruitments and procurements will be processed for projects implemented by UN-Habitat eliminating the duplication on the steps to be followed.

3 deliveriNg as oNe iN PaKistaN

3.1 One UN : overall orientation and relevance to UN-Habitat thematic focus areas

The One UN Plan for Pakistan is based on the experiences with the country’s United Nations Development Assistance Framework which was extended to 2010, in order to align it with Pakistan’s National Development Plan, in terms of timing and matching national priorities with the capacities of the UN system. In line with the overall objectives of DaO under the UN reform, the One UN Plan is expected to be result-oriented, and is contained in one document, with one work plan and budget, for implementation through joint programming. For the preparation of the One UN Plan, five thematic working groups of the UN Country Team formulated the following five joint programmes:

• Agriculture, Rural Development and Poverty Reduction,

• Disaster Risk Management

• Education

• Environment

• Health and Population

Based on its mandate, experience and capacity to deliver, UN-Habitat participated actively in the formulation of four joint programmes, in which UN-Habitat actively participates, under the umbrella of the United Nations Country Team:

• Environment

The following outcomes address human settlement related issues:


• Environmental policy

• Sustainable urbanization (with UN-Habitat being the convenor of this joint programme component)

• Water and sanitation

• Green industries (including solid waste management and energy-efficient construction),

• disaster risk management

The following outcomes addressing human settlements related issues:

• Disaster risk management policies and coordination

• Capacity Building and strengthening systems

• Strengthening DRM in the education sector

• Local applications

• Health and Population (to a very limited extent, jointly with UNFPA)

• education (to a very limited extent, jointly with UNESCO)

To quite some degree, the identification and formulation of the DaO joint programme on Disaster Risk Management is based on the UNCT and Government of Pakistan recognition of UN-Habitat’s demonstrated capacity when carrying out the post-earthquake reconstruction programme.

On the side of the UN, the One UN Plan is funded through a combination of earmarked and unearmarked funding from donors under the Multi Donor Trust Fund (MDTF), as well as from agency core funds (except UN-Habitat). Approximately 10 per cent of the overall DaO One UN budget for Pakistan has funding from MDTF, and several agencies kept their own programmes rather than integrating them into the One UN Plan. Further, many donors (and agencies) now focus their funding on post disaster programmes of recovery and rehabilitation, rather than contributing to the One UN Fund. There is an overall shortfall of funding for the current One UN Plan.

Funds available to UN-Habitat under the One UN Plan total USD 3.6 million for the implementation

of five projects under the overall Joint Programmes:

• Water and Sanitation improvement in informal settlements through gender mainstreaming and empowerment of local authority

• One UN Disaster Management Programme Pakistan

• One UN Joint Programme on environment : sustainable urbanization and energy conservation

• Geographic Information systems (GIS) : Capacity building for national population census

• Improvement of 29 school buildings in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa

In addition, UN-Habitat provides own funding to project activities from earmarked global programmes: on water and sanitation, on land and on youth activities, some of which are contracted to NGOs. These project activities are not coordinated by the Country Programme Manager and are not part of the One UN Plan, but are administered directly by resp. programme divisions in Nairobi.

By far most of UN-Habitat’s activities in Pakistan, however, are concentrated on recovery and rehabilitation, following the destruction of rural housing and rural infrastructure as result of the earthquake of 2005, the displacement of families affected by the war on terror, and more recently the flooding disasters, funded by the Central Emergency Response Fund and direct earmarked donor funding outside the Multi Donor Trust Fund for development activities. In fact, only four per cent of UN-Habitat’s current activities in Pakistan are funded through the One UN Plan under Multi Donor Trust Fund.

Moreover, activities of the United Nations Country Team focus presently almost exclusively on post-disaster recovery, reconstruction and rehabilitation through humanitarian assistance funds, while joint programmes under the One UN Plan receive much less attention. There is now a United Nations Country Team with a UN Resident Coordinator, as well as a UN Humanitarian Country Team, with a UN Humanitarian Coordinator.


3.2 UN-Habitat country team participating in the dao process

The presence of UN-Habitat in Pakistan is assured through a national team under the overall coordination of an international Country Programme Manager (Country Programme Manager). The national team includes one person whose working time is fully absorbed by the DaO process at the level of United Nations Country Team which requires participation in a good number of meetings on policy, joint programme and administrative matters of harmonized management and accounting practices. The mandate, competence and comparative advantage of UN-Habitat is well recognized, largely due to its track record with post disaster recovery and reconstruction programmes.

On the side of the Government of Pakistan, UN-Habitat cooperates closely with the line Ministries of Construction and housing and the Ministry of Environment, as well as with the Earthquake Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Authority (ERRA) of the Prime Minister’s Office, later transformed into the National Disaster Management Agency.

3.3 Prospects of funding UN-Habitat country activities through the One UN fund

UN-Habitat’s participation in the Pakistan DaO process is constrained by limited core funding and staff resources, as well as by a fragile security environment as a result of political instability. The operational interventions are built around projects which bring in funds from donor countries in response to disasters, rather than resulting from consistent efforts on the basis of UN-Habitat’s mandate to strengthen the agency’s competitiveness and profile at the level of United Nations Country Team. Being a project office, UN-Habitat in Pakistan is faced with institutional and resource limitations in committing itself to long-term support and policy advice to Government and other partners in civil society. Its interventions rely on adhoc and time-bound project delivery initiatives when addressing key themes of urbanization or climate change.

In a way, the UN-Habitat post disaster recovery and reconstruction programmes subsidize the participation of the agency’s Country Programme Manager Office in the United Nations Country Team, which is not sustainable if strengthening the agency’s capacity to participate in coordinated policy support and joint programming along the One UN Plan is the goal.

In the present situation of donor funds in Pakistan being overwhelmingly directed towards humanitarian and peace-building activities of the UN system, the future of One UN Plan development activities through pooled and non-earmarked donor contributions remains seriously underfunded. That scenario has impacts on UN-Habitat’s participation in the One UN Plan which is also in future likely to remain limited in terms of cost-effectiveness.

The UN-Habitat Country Programme Manager participated in the United Nations Country Team retreat in December 2010 on the DaO starting in 2011, at which occasion a list of priorities in the One UN Plan and its five joint programmes was identified, and the need to enhance impact of the UN programme in Pakistan. Faced with natural disasters and an unstable security situation, a key theme for the One UN Plan is the need to strike a balance between humanitarian and development assistance, rightsizing the humanitarian appeal, and ensuring partners’ ownership and sustainability of UN interventions. For UN-Habitat to play a recognized and effective role in the new One UN Plan, it needs to focus its participation in the DaO on (a) More advocacy and policy support and less on single project service delivery, (b) Capacity development of civil society, (c) Intervention through policy advice at the regional and local levels, and (d) Disaster preparedness and humanitarian response.


4. deliveriNg as oNe iN rwaNda

4.1 background

The Republic of Rwanda is one of the smallest and most densely populated countries in Africa, it has a population of 11,370,500 inhabitants, a population growth of 2.8 per cent, a life expectancy at birth is 58 years and its literacy is 70 per cent. Recent studies have shown that the majority of the population lives below the poverty line with one third below the food poverty line. Close to 90 per cent of the population depends on subsistence agriculture for survival. Rwanda’s long-term development goals are embedded in its ‘Vision 2020’ which seeks to transform Rwanda from a low-income agriculture-based economy to a knowledge-based, service-oriented economy by 2020.

From an administrative standpoint, Rwanda is divided into four provinces plus the city of Kigali. In urban areas Rwanda concentrates 19 per cent of its population. At national level the population with access to an improved source of water is 74 per cent and access to an improved sanitation system is 42 per cent.

Before Delivering as One (DaO) UN-Habitat provided support to the Government in the following areas:

• From 1995-2003 focused on: (i) Institutional support to the Ministry of Rehabilitation and Social Integration and the Kigali Municipality; (ii) Rehabilitation of public buildings in Kigali and other urban centres, (iii) Site development in Kigali and other urban centres for the resettlement of displaced people and returnees; and (iv) Repair of war-damaged houses and construction of houses in urban areas for displaced people and returnees. The programme was completed in 2003 with a total budget of USD 10,115,000 and all achievements were handed-over to the Government of Rwanda.

• As way forward to these interventions, UN-Habitat opened in July 2004 its country office inside UNDP compound with the Habitat Programme Manager (Country Programme Manager) to efficiently mobilise resources

hence deliver on Government priorities aligned with the agency mandate. As a result of the opening of UN-Habitat country office, a number of projects have been initiated namely: (i) The ‘Kigali Industrial-Environmental Management Project’ developed in partnership with UNEP and UNDP with the overall objective of assessing the environmental and socio-economic situation of the Gikondo valley and provide the Government with a framework for building consensus and environmental protection in the Gikondo valley since its urban wetlands are affected and destructed by industry and settlements in Kigali. The total budget was USD 150,000 inclusive of USD 50,000 from UN-Habitat; and (ii) The support with an international staff to the Ministry in charge of Housing and Urban Development (MININFRA) for the formulation of the urban development policy with a total budget of USD 745,433 sourced from UNDP Rwanda.

The country office is running with eight staff being: The Country Programme Manager; an administrative and financial assistant; a national project coordinator for the water for African cities projects; a national project coordinator for the slum upgrading in Western province (AQUPO Project); a national project coordinator for the youth programme in Kigali; one UNV; a project assistant for the slum upgrading project; and a driver.

4.2 delivering as one in rwanda

With the DaO modality, the activities of projects mentioned above were enclosed in the common operational document, which served to mobilise funds under the umbrella of One UN funds. The table below shows UN-Habitat interventions areas and subsequent budget so far allocated:


Project summary in rwanda:

thematic intervention

Key activities UN-Habitat dao funds (Usd)

Total funds received for 2008-2009

Total funds received in 2010

Total funds received for 2011

total for 4 years

Governance (i) Advocacy and policy towards promoting local economic development through strategic planning with key actors in municipalities;

(ii) Capacity building on key competences for improving local governance;

(iii) Capacity building for urban youth on leadership competences and roles for policy development on youth.

164,859 187,494 153,943 506,296

Health, population, HIV, Nutrition

(i) Development of governance framework and management tools in water and sanitation for poor and vulnerable groups in Kigali

- 49,396 67,726 117,122

Environment (i) Capacity building for formulation of urban environmental and management strategies;

(ii) Sustainable urban planning in secondary cities of Western Province (Karongi, Rusizi).

225,000 50,270 187,706 462,976

Sustainable growth & social protection

(i) Capacity building of national and local authorities to ensure sustainability in new settlements of the acquired facilities.

208,125 80,268 52,500 340,893

total funds received from dao in four years: 597,984 367,428 461,875 1,427,287

In addition to these funds mobilised under DaO, UN-Habitat sourced from UNDP the amount of USD 820,000 to support environment project activities enclosed in the AQUPO project. This brings to a total of USD 2,247,287 mobilised in four years by the Country Programme Manager.

Planning: With the collaboration of 20 UN agencies (nine resident and 11 non-resident agencies) it was prepared the ‘One UN Programme in Rwanda: Common Operational Document 2008-2012’ which is a programmatic document specifying how the UN in Rwanda will operationalise the United Nations Development Assistance Framework 2008-2012 (United Nations Development Assistance Framework). The United Nations Development Assistance Framework is a response to the national needs and priorities outlined in the ‘Rwandan Government’s Economic Development and Poverty Reduction Strategy’ and the ‘Vision 2020’. The Common

Operational Document is divided in five sectors being: (1) Governance; (2) Health, population, HIV and nutrition; (3) Education; (4) Environment, and (5) Sustainable growth and social protection; with gender as a cross-cutting aspect in all five sectors. The Common Operational Document presents key activities by outcome and by agency and for its implementation it is required a total of USD 487.6 million. UN-Habitat activities listed in the above table were selected from the Common Operational Document.

For UN-Habitat, the load of the planning exercise falls on the Country Programme Manager who has to participate in multiple meetings (UNCT, subject groups, programme planning advisory groups, sectoral and other planning meetings and retreats) where it is discussed and coordinated the preparation of the One UN programme. These meetings are time consuming, some of them more technical and others are more strategic meetings


where are discussed the details of the programme and its funding. For agencies with one person, as it is the case of UN-Habitat in Rwanda, it is very challenging and in many cases impossible to meet the requirements because meetings run in parallel or because specific policy or technical knowledge is required to advocate on the importance of a certain topic that falls under the agency mandate. The possibility of integrating the national project coordinators on some meetings could be studied.

Advocacy on policy and strategic aspects to convince Government and other UN agencies on the importance of the UN-Habitat mandate and the relevance for the country plays a key role and if not well articulated it is simply ignored. On this key strategic planning exercise the Country Programme Manager has been left alone.

For the next planning cycle it seems that the One UN programme will concentrate on less sectors (from five will probable reduce to three) and the intention is to concentrate more on policy and strategic aspects, reducing or eliminating direct interventions. Although this is not decided, if implemented, it will imply that UN-Habitat will have to radically adapt its assistance to the new line of intervention, bringing to the country otherwise unavailable technical expertise and assisting Government with fewer projects and quality know-how. More specifically, for UN-Habitat may imply reducing its areas of intervention and choosing one or two key topics where the agency can provide technical assistance adding real value to the programme.

In strategic planning meetings with Government, one agency (generally UNESCO) represents all Non Resident Agencies (NRA) what adds another layer of difficulty to the planning exercise limiting the advocacy on UN-Habitat mandate that can be done by the staff in country.

In Rwanda, the Government manifested that DaO is the modality how they want to deal with the UN and they don’t want to go back to agency implementation.

funding: Funds for DaO are originated from two sources: (a) Contributions from the UN Agencies, called ‘vertical funds’; and (b) Contributions

from donors to the One UN fund for Rwanda. In Rwanda, resource mobilisation with in-country donors falls only under the Resident Coordinator and UN-Habitat is not allowed to participate or contact any potential donor for bilateral funding or for negotiating specific funds for a UN-Habitat component in the One UN programme. Therefore the only way to obtain funds from DaO is preparing consolidated action plan that captures project proposals for activities already agreed and submit those proposals for approval by the Resident Coordinator. The approval is subject to: priorities decided on the DaO programme; availability of vertical or core funds from the agency; if previous allocations were properly utilised; and availability in the DaO fund.

Up to now in Rwanda, approximately one third of the expected DaO funds have been obtained with reluctance from some donors to provide or increase their contribution. This funding situation increases the competition among agencies for available funds. Resident agencies with larger amounts of vertical funds and stronger presence seems to have more chance of getting funds than NRAs without a strong presence and limited vertical funds. It is becoming clearer, although it is not a rule, that agencies without contributions with vertical funds will not have access to the DaO fund.

UN-Habitat Headquarters approached the Government of Rwanda promising vertical funds for project implementation on water and youth. In the water case (WAC-II) a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed for USD 1,120,000 and Headquarters only provided USD 180,000 in a cooperation agreement before announcing that no more funds were available. On Youth, it was promised USD 200,000 from vertical funds, which were not materialised. The reasons why these two cases occurred were not studied, however it can be concluded that some funds in reasonable amounts were promised from Headquarters and could have been used to leverage larger DaO funds, and that did not occur. Secondly, having promised funds to the Government and not materialising it, eroded the trust on the agency and affected the efforts done


by field staff with the Government and inside the One UN.

In Rwanda, the Government is allocating funds for projects implemented by UN-Habitat (approximately USD 100,000 for each activity/project and USD 560,000 to the WAC-II project, amounts that have been fully disbursed). The retrieval of funds by UN-Habitat puts the agency in a very bad position of trust with the Government who is committed with the projects.

implementation: After talking with UN-Habitat staff as well as with other UN agencies, the impression is that at the level of implementation, there is no real joint approach with joint teams and joint delivery; although for the approval of a project, a minimum of two agencies should be participating, each agency follows its own administrative and financial procedures with different timing which implies that each agency at the moment of implementation delivers its own component. There is much more to be coordinated among agencies to have a joint implementation reaching target groups and beneficiaries with combined assistance.

In 2009 no funds were allocated from DaO to UN-Habitat because it was not able to spend 2008 allocation. In general the agency is delay in all its activities. According to field staff, the main problem on UN-Habitat implementation is the time that takes recruitments and procurements (which takes even more than six months). Delays in implementation affect beneficiaries, relations with Government and counterparts, reduce the delivery capacity of the agency and impede obtaining DaO funds due to non utilisation of already allocated funds.


conclusion 1: The UN-Habitat activities undertaken and financed by the DaO in Rwanda are important and there is a commitment from the staff in delivering them in the best possible way. The results obtained are of good quality and recognised at country level. However, when looking the country needs and priorities, and the UN-Habitat mandate from a wider perspective is possible to identify that

other interventions at policy and strategy levels could have had a greater impact.

recommendation 1: An effort should be done from Headquarters providing field staff with continuous and systematic knowhow applicable to the country, aligning with the Government request for next cycle to support the Government on its vision 2020 with more value added interventions.

conclusion 2: The DaO planning process is extremely demanding and it is becoming more policy and strategic oriented exercise. In Rwanda, the planning trend is to support the country in specific topics what differs from the present approach that is covering many small interventions without significant impact as a whole. Under this new and most probable planning scenario, the UN-Habitat field staff do not have all the necessary policy and strategic tools to advocate for the agency mandate in critical planning meetings, thus it requires support.

recommendation 2: A stronger participation should be streamlined from Headquarters joining the best from normative and operational divisions in order to substantiate a well-structured programme that can reflect Government’s priorities and subsequently be interiorised by the United Nations Country Team as a priority to be financed and implemented. In addition, along the planning process Headquarters’s presence is absolutely necessary, especially during relevant meetings where decisions are taken on agencies participation and funding (scheduled more or less every quarter).

conclusion 3: Regarding funding for UN-Habitat interventions, DaO funds are limited and to access those funds it requires some conditions, and one of it is the contribution of core funds from the agency. UN-Habitat core funds are limited, however something exist and independently of the amount can highly reinforce the participation of the agency locally.

recommendation: Core funds from the agency should be better coordinated at Headquarters level and better managed for obtaining increased


DaO funds. Once funds are committed with governmental authorities, they should not be retrieved.

conclusion 4: Projects are implemented at a slow pace and it is affecting agency reputation with beneficiaries and partners. Delays of six months are common inside of UNDP.

recommendation: To avoid the delays on recruitment and procurement, PSD/UNON should take action as soon as possible for an understanding with UNDP on the recruitment and procurement process to be followed and the timing to be taken. From the operational side, alternatives should be studied to speed implementation, and from the management side, Headquarters should take action decentralising decisions closer to the action.

conclusion 5: The One UN trend in the UN system, which was initiated in pilot and non-pilot DaO countries, has not reached UN-Habitat Headquarters thus, planning, funding and implementation of field activities continues to be segmented by divisions or by project.

recommendation: A One UN-Habitat approach at central level should be established and reflected at country level. This change of approach will definitely improve the perception of the agency by Government and UN agencies, what should contribute in supporting UN-Habitat mandate within the country needs.

5. deliveriNg as oNe iN taNZaNia

Based to some extent on the lessons learned from previous coordination of agencies under United Nations Development Assistance Framework, the UN system embarked on the first One UN Plan (UN Development Assistance Plan—UNDAP) in 2007, completed in 2010. In close collaboration with the Gov. of Tanzania and the donor countries (and coordinated by a tripartite agreement through the Joint Steering Committee), the United Nations Country Team formulated and adopted the present UNDAP (2011-2015) which composed around three Clusters with 10 programme areas. The total budget for that

period stands at USD 777 million, out of which USD 216 (28 per cent) is to be financed by donors through the One UN Fund, leaving the balance to be funded through agency core funds and non-core fund mechanisms (earmarked donor funds, global UN programmes, etc).

cluster 1: Economic Growth and Poverty Reduction (One UN Fund USD 180 million, i.e. 23 per cent); with programme areas for joint agency programmes on

6. Economic growth (9 per cent of total One UN Fund),

7. Environment (14 per cent);

cluster 2: Quality of Life and Social Well-Being (One UN Fund USD 323 million, i.e. 42 per cent) with programme areas for joint agency programmes on

8. Education (13 per cent),

9. Health (17 per cent),

10. HIV/AIDS (5 per cent)

11. WASH (3 per cent)

12. Social protection (4 per cent)

cluster 3: Governance, Emergency and Disaster Response; Refugees (One UN Fund USD 270 million, i.e. 35 per cent), with programme areas for joint agency programmes on

13. Governance (9 per cent)

14. Emergencies (2 per cent)

15. Refugees (24 per cent)

There are a total of 17 resident agencies participating with their special expertise and comparative advantage in the United Nations Country Team and the implementation of the UNDAP, further supported by three non-resident agencies. UN-Habitat is considered by the UNRC to be a resident agency (on account of being full time present in Tanzania), and its Country Programme Manager participates in the working group on WASH. The One UN Fund of UNDAP 2011-2015 is financed from pooled contributions of seven donors (‘friends of the UN’). According to the UNRC office, there is a trend emerging among the donors to revert to higher earmarked contributions to specific programme areas and/


or ‘preferred’ agencies. Such a trend looks somewhat contradictory to the concept of multi-year pooled funding for the UN reform process, and has the risk of creating funding imbalances in favour of ‘preferred’ agencies and away from Government ownership concepts. In the view of the UNRC office, the success of the One UN Plan as a unified programme of the UN system of agencies will depend considerably on the availability of multi-year non-earmarked funding of the UNDAP as a whole.

UN-Habitat participates in the WASH (Water, Sanitation and Health) programme area under Cluster no. 2: Quality of Life and Social Well-Being, jointly with UNICEF, UNFPA and WHO. WASH is likely to get an allocation of approx. 3 per cent of the total One UN Fund for Tanzania, the smallest of the 10 programme areas under UNDAP. The Country Programme Manager has been requested to specify the inputs of UN-Habitat (actions) to WASH, which will focus on Zanzibar (assistance to the Zanzibar Water and Sanitation Authority (ZAWA), and to the Dar es Salaam Water and Sanitation Authority. The total budget will be approximately USD 3 millions, out of which about USD 0.9 millions is likely to come from the One UN Fund, the rest is expected from agency core funds. Actual allocation will be made on the basis proposals for joint programmes with the other agencies. There is a likelihood of earmarked funding for the WASH programme area of UNDAP from Switzerland and Netherlands.

The UNDAP 2011-2015 has neither programme area, nor specific activities on urbanization, and non of the other UN-Habitat operated projects in Tanzania figure in the UNDAP 2011-2015. According to the Country Programme Manager and the UNRC Office, the main reason for this ‘omission’ results from a lack of priorities on urban issues by the Government of Tanzania when requests to the UN system were made. However, the Government development plans (MUKUTA and MUKUZA) include urbanization among the development priorities of the country. This glaring missed opportunity has been brought to the attention of the line Ministry, the Ministry

of Lands, Housing and H.S. Development, with a request to submit competent requests on assistance for urban issues to the United Nations Country Team and donors when the UNDAP is reviewed next year.

Consequently, UN-Habitat’s competence and comparative advantage on urbanization issues like sustainable urbanization, slum upgrading, or land management is not properly recognized in the current UNDAP. The past positive project results with Sustainable Dar es Salaam and slum upgrading have apparently not influenced the Gov. of Tanzania adequately enough to introduce these issues into the consultations with the United Nations Country Team and UNRC on priorities for assistance from the UN agencies. Considerable efforts are needed both at the level of Headquarters and the Country Programme Manager to convince the United Nations Country Team and the Gov. of Tanzania of the urbanization competencies and comparative advantages of UN-Habitat in that field.

In this context, note should be taken of the very inadequate support from Headquarters and the RTCD Africa office to the Country Programme Manager, in terms of funding, staffing, and policy/programming expertise. The Country Programme Manager, not being himself an expert on human settlement issues, has no assistance from a competent team, and no resources to input to the United Nations Country Team and its working groups on action plans for joint programme formulation. The multiple functions of the Country Programme Manager get further amplified on account of having to attend, as the only agency representative, an increasing number of DaO related meetings in which inter-agency consultations and decisions on joint programme identification and formulation take place. There is an urgent need for Headquarters/RTCD to review this very unsatisfactory situation. UN-Habitat risks to be marginalized further in the UN reform process in Tanzania.

As agency-specific inputs to the WASH programme area UN-Habitat is identifying a list of key actions under its responsibility for joint programming


with other agencies:

• Assistance to ZAWA;

• Demonstration of rain water harvesting in primate schools;

• Development of S&H policy for Zanzibar;

• Strengthening the ongoing monitoring system in Zanzibar;

• Community-based WATSAN project implementation;

• Development of IWRM action plans and capacity building;

• Assistance to Dar es Salaam Water and Sanitation Authority;

• Improvement of community sanitation;

• Support for establishment of monitoring system; and

• Community-based WATSAN project implementation.

6. deliveriNg as oNe iN vietNam

6.1 One UN: orientation and relevance to UN-Habitat mandate and focus areas

The present One UN Plan for Vietnam for the period 2006-2010 is the result of tripartite consultations between the Government of Vietnam, the United Nations Country Team (UNCT) and the group of donors represented in that country. The original plan has been revised in 2008 (OP2) and extended in 2010 by one year into 2011. On the side of the UN system, the One UN Plan is implemented through the participation of 14 UN agencies, among them, UN-Habitat. The Plan is financed from ODA donor grant allocations to the One Plan Fund (OPF) for Vietnam, under the UN Multi Donor Trust Fund (MDTF), as well as from earmarked and non-earmarked agency contributions (core funds). For the budget period 2008-2010, OPF is at the level of USD 79 million, representing approximately 30 per cent of multilateral ODA grants for Vietnam. UN-Habitat’s participation in the OP2 is solely funded through allocations from the OPF for Vietnam (USD 0.950 million, representing slightly over 1 per cent of OPF).

Currently, tripartite consultations take place on the One UN Plan for the period 2012-2016, coordinated by the One Plan Fund Mobilization and Allocation Committee (OPFMAC) under a tripartite arrangement between the Government, UN and donors, with the overall supervision of the UN Resident Coordinator. As per the OPF allocation criteria, it is hoped that the next One UN Plan will be better integrated among the agencies through procedures of joint and result-based programming/planning, include indicators to measure the achievement of results, and address the challenges of efficiency, economy of scale, and potential synergy through reducing overlaps and duplication. Overall, the next One UN Plan (OP3) shall be less on service delivery projects by single agencies, but focus on coordinated policy advice and capacity building aligned with the country’s Socio-Economic Development Plan for 2012-2016.

The present One UN Plan for the period 2006-2010 has 5 programme components/focus areas, each of them composed of several outputs, with a total of 23 output clusters. Each output lists a number of expected results and assigns several agencies to contribute to achieving such results through joint programming. There are a total of 93 expected results under the 23 output clusters.

In the current One UN Plan, the UN-Habitat issues of urbanization, urban development strategies, pro-poor land and housing, improvements of basic infrastructure and services remain somewhat hidden in the total list of 23 output clusters and 93 expected results. Nevertheless, the mandate and competence of UN-Habitat is recognized, and the agency is expected to make contributions under each of the five plan components, in line with its mandate and comparative advantage.

Overall, the current One UN Plan is still an extension and improved coordination of existing agency programmes and projects under the new One UN programme structure, broadly aligned to the Government’s Socio-Economic Development Plan 2006-2011. The present UN-Habitat projects of direct relevance to outcomes and results under the current plan only started in 2010. It is to be expected that the new One Plan for the period


2011-2016 (OP3), currently under preparation as a tripartite programming exercise between the Government, the Like Minded Donor Group (LMDG) and participating UN agencies, under the overall coordination of the UN Resident Coordinator, will be more of a strategic framework for joint result-based programming of agencies, including of UN-Habitat.

It is to be expected that, in pursuit of this objective of joint programming by the agencies, the various Programme Review Committees set up among the agencies for that purpose will benefit from the analysis of Vietnam’s 2010-2015 Socio-Economic Development Plan, undertaken by a joint team of GoV, UN consultant and the LMDG, entitled ‘Joint Country Analysis’ (dated July 2010) which includes full chapters on Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation, and on Urban Management. As the current OP2 has only broad references to urban issues under ‘expected results’, and almost none at all to issues of climate change, neither on affecting national nor coastal or urban development, it remains to be seen, if the OP3 will contain policy and strategic links to these recognized national priorities.

6.2 UN-Habitat country team (country Programme manager) participating in the dao process

Participation in the One UN Plan in Vietnam is under the responsibility of the UN-Habitat country team, which is composed of one Country Programme Manager and 7 other nationals (4 professionals and 3 clerical staff).

While the Country Programme Manager is funded from RTCD resources, the other team members are funded through UNDP administered service contracts, under funds allocated to UN-Habitat from the One UN budget. The One UN Fund allocation is for the purpose of implementing three projects:

a. Quang Nam Provincial Development Strategy;

b. Urban Observatory (urban indicators) project; and

c. Pro-poor housing project totalling USD 0.950 million.

The OP2 has been extended through 2011, with an allocation of USD 0.4 million planned for UN-Habitat, awaiting approval by OPFMAC. While most agencies contribute own resources (core resources) to the DaO process, in the case of UN-Habitat, this modest amount ensures the implementation of three projects, and is the only source of funds for all the other functions of the Country Programme Manager and the team, including participation in the DaO programming and implantation process. There are no other financial resources from UN-Habitat, neither in support of participating in the DaO process, nor for studies on upcoming issues, or advocacy and public awareness.

Apart from the above DaO projects, UN-Habitat activities in Vietnam are funded by the Water for Asian Cities and Mekong Sanitation Project (MekSan), implemented by a national project manager, and coordinated by a regional project office in Laos, separate from the institutional arrangement for DaO in Vietnam, and outside the scope of responsibilities of the Country Programme Manager in Vietnam and of ROAP. If such separate arrangement is allowed to continue, UN-Habitat’s visibility and its contribution to DaO under the established United Nations Country Team scope of activities is likely to be negatively affected. There is urgent need to review this separate arrangement, with the objective of bringing all UN-Habitat activities in Vietnam under a unified institutional set up coordinated by the Country Programme Manager, and following the objectives of DaO and the One UN Plan. If the system of UN agencies is expected to review their management practices arrangment, the question that should be raised, is why UN-Habitat as a single agency does not deliver as one.

The limited resources available to the Country Programme Manager team pose considerable stress and constraints to the Team’s ability to perform its multitude of functions as a small agency:

a. Ensure the recognition of UN-Habitat’s competence, competitiveness and comparative advantage at the level of United Nations Country Team deliberations, incl.


participation in numerous meetings required for OP preparation and coordination;

b. Establish partnerships with UN agencies for joint programming under DaO;

c. Establish partnerships with Government institutions (mainly Ministry of Construction and local authorities), as well as with civil society;

d. Set up and coordinate the implementation of TC projects in the country;

e. Carry out advocacy work and public relations, incl. World Habitat Day at country level;

f. Provide logistic and substantive support to UN-Habitat global programmes in the country, which are not funded through OPF; and

g. Carry out administrative (incl. financial) and substantive reporting to United Nations Country Team, UNDP, ROAP, RTCD and donors, as required under established arrangements;

In order to address this multitude of functions, the Country Programme Manager estimates that 25 per cent of working time is allocated to DaO meetings and discussions, 50 per cent to technical advisory and programme management, and 25 per cent to national delivery and UN-Habitat representation.

The country programme manager team is presently preparing UN-Habitat’s participation in the next OP for the period 2012-2016 (OP3), following an elaborate set of allocation guidelines and criteria, set up and coordinated by OPFMAC. Apart from direct relevance to the country’s priorities under the 2012-2016 Socio-Economic Development Plan, these criteria include UN-Habitat’s track record on cost effectiveness, competence and competitive use of resources by the agency’ overall programmes outside Vietnam.

6.3 UN-Habitat’s visibility

With the implementation of projects funded under the One UN Fund, the visibility and perception of the agency’s mandate has remarkably increased, also as result of the cooperation agreements on projects with national partners like the Association of Cities of Vietnam, and agencies

under the Ministry of Construction. DaO has also helped to engage the expertise of other UN agencies in national policy advocacy (e.g., UNFPA involvement in housing policy advocacy, UNDP in climate resilient urban development policy) and local strategic planning (e.g. the Quang Nam Provincial Development Strategy with involvement of UNESCO, ILO, FAO).

Visibility improvement was also achieved after 2007, when the country programme manager was officially appointed so that UN-Habitat could participate actively in the United Nations Country Team. With funding provided under the One UN Plan, UN-Habitat was able to undertake specific projects to demonstrate its competence and value added to its Government counterparts, donors and other UN agencies. Government recognizes UN-Habitat as its main international partner on issues of sustainable urbanization. With its comparative advantage in terms of specialized expertise, UN-Habitat has been taking the lead among UN agencies on DaO initiatives with sustainable urban development, and makes competent contributions to UNCT discussions on climate change. There is room for a more pro-active intervention by UN-Habitat on climate change affecting coastal development, urban governance, pro-poor housing policies, and basic infrastructure improvements.

In the next One UN Plan (2012-2016), UN-Habitat shall focus its intervention more on capacity building, policy support, general advocacy, and research on topical issues emanating from the United Nations Country Team. Guided by the tripartite partnersip agreements between the Government, UN and donors, future interventions of the UN system shall be more relevant to Government priorities, and sustainable urbanization is very relevant.

6.4 funding Prospects

The prospects of funding future UN-Habitat projects through the OPF look not very promising. This is not a reflection of UN-Habitat’s competence and relevance to the Socio-Economic Development Plan, but the result of a likely


reduction of the OPF for the next plan period. The change of Vietnam’s status from a developing to a middle income country will change the external development structure, less for ODA, with a shift to (concessional) loans and Government cost-sharing. Agency representatives, as well as donors expect a significant drop in OPF funds available for the next One UN Plan. Larger agencies, like UNDP, UNICEF or UNFPA are already preparing for a shift in the funding structure. That scenario will affect UN-Habitat future operations in Vietnam considerably. With the absence of own (core) resources, the priorities and funding modalities through Government cost sharing, or direct donor funding for specific project proposals along the agency’s recognized competencies (including climate change or disaster (risk) mitigation), will have to be considered.

Several ODA donor countries are likely to move out of Vietnam, because of its change to a MIC. The Governments of the United Kingdom, Sweden, and Denmark have already announced such move. The picture of (future) donor contributions looks very uneven. Some donors (e.g. Norway and Finland) channel their ODA exclusively through the DaO process to the OPF for Vietnam, while others (e.g., the EU and Japan) continue to fund UN agencies directly on specific programmes of their interest (earmarked funding). Others again (e.g., Belgium) support the DaO process politically, but do not provide funds to the OPF directly and prefer to channel their ODA unearmarked to UN agencies. Apart from this mixed picture as regards support to the DaO process and its OPF, donors continue bilateral funding of their international development priorities.

6.5 relevance of UN-Habitat’s thematic focus areas to vietnam’s national development priorities and oP3 strategies

At the level of the Ministry of Construction (line Ministry responsible for policies on urbanization and housing), a wide range of requests for assistance is directed towards UN-Habitat and its country team. The Ministry has identified the bottlenecks to be at the level of (a) infrastructure,

(b) institutional development, and (c) capacity building and human resources. The present support provided by the UN-Habitat projects under DaO is highly appreciated; a formal request for further assistance will be made to UN-Habitat soon, incl. a request for further consultations on future cooperation.

The Association of Cities in Vietnam is the national institutional umbrella under which the collection of 97 indicators for 96 cities and towns is presently underway. The results shall be presented to the Government, the United Nations Country Team and selected donors in July, which has a good potential of raising awareness on UN-Habitat’s competence and thematic relevance in participating in the next One UN Plan.

In terms of future topical issues, matters concerning the impact of climate change on urbanization (particularly for coastal area development), disaster preparedness, mitigation and risk reduction, as well as urban rural linkages are mentioned by United Nations Country Team members as having the potential for joint programming under the next One UN Plan.

6.6 UN-Habitat’s participation in the UN country team: benefits and constraints

There is overall recognition of UN-Habitat’s specific mandate relevant to the country’s development priorities, its competence and comparative advantage within the UN Country Team. The active participation of the Country Programme Manager and his team in the DaO process is very much appreciated by the Office of the Resident Coordinator. This positive view is shared by the representatives of other UN agencies, particularly UNDP, UNFPA, FAO or ILO. UN-Habitat’s status as a Non-resident Agency (NRA) does not appear to limit its active role and competent participation in the deliberations of the United Nations Country Team and its working groups. In the view of the UNDP country office, UN-Habitat’s focus on programme delivery, while authorizing UNDP to administer its funds, is a good model to follow for other UN agencies of similar size.


However, and as mentioned above, the effectiveness of the present Country Programme Manager structure is severely constrained by a lack of human and financial resources. While UN-Habitat may never be able to match the strength of main UN agencies like UNDP, UNICEF or UNFPA, its recognition in United Nations Country Team depends also on its ability to provide human and financial resources, e.g. for preparing brief strategy papers on upcoming issues related to the agency’s competence. The question must be raised here, whether UN-Habitat’s participation in the DaO process may prove to be a strain on the agency’s resources, outweighing the potential benefits derived from enhanced recognition and increased portfolio, if the level of funding through the OPF remains low, and agency core funding and sources for projects under cost sharing or earmarked donor contributions remain limited as of today.

6.7 Headquarters and asia-Pacific regional office support to dao and the UN-Habitat country team

UN-Habitat’s participation in the DaO process depends, to a considerable extent, on the support provided by Headquarters in Nairobi and by ROAP, in terms of ensuring compliance with UN-Habitat’s mandate and policy priorities (focus areas), substantive backstopping capacities, and administrative services through PSD and UNON. There is concern among the Country Programme Manager country team that requirements of project approval, allocation of funds, financial and substantive reporting are multi-layered, require different IT formats (UNON uses IMIS while UNDP uses ATLAS) and are very time-consuming. This is particularly so, if some of these requirements, particularly financial and substantive reporting, make considerable demands on the working time allocated to such matters. For example, as concerns substantive reporting, regular reports on One UN Plan implementation to the Resident Coordinator and the Monitoring and Evaluation Team represent an additional layer, apart from reports to ROAP under the MTSIP format for clearance and transmission to Headquarters for inclusion in the former RTCD annual report

on operational activities. In addition, donors have their own reporting format on projects implemented through earmarked funding.

As raised already at other occasions, ROAP has only limited delegated authority, being more of an extended arm of former RTCD, rather than a full Regional Office. At the level of Headquarters, UN-Habitat has enlarged the functions of its PSD, which represents an additional layer for project approval, financial authorization, and human resource management, additional to UNON. There is need for a unified set of operational modalities, or a codified manual for operational activities which backstopped through substantive divisions and administered through PSD and UNON, regardless of sources of funding. That need is even more urgent under the overall umbrella of DaO and the overall scope for aligning UN-Habitat’s diverse operational management practices with the Harmonized Programme and Project Management Guidelines.

As concerns the DaO process in terms of policy coordination, UN-Habitat now benefits from having established a liaison office for Asia and Pacific in Bangkok, under its own MTSIP, which addresses the requirements of regional level coordination, resulting from participating in the DaO process. Similarly, there are additional demands under DaO on UN-Habitat’s participation at the level of UNDG.

It is beyond the TOR of this evaluation study to estimate the overall cost and budget implications for UN-Habitat at the level of Headquarters, ROAP, the Asia Pacific Liaison Office and New York Liaison Office of participating in the Dao process in Vietnam and the other pilot countries.

In accordance with the overall UNDG coordinated strategy for the DaO process, steps have been undertaken by the United Nations Country Team, the Resident Coordinator’s office and UNDP to standardize administrative procedures which will have significant impact on the management practices of participating agencies. The goal is to have one set of management practices to guide the operations of all agencies. Among


these, the Harmonized Programme and Project Management Guidelines, which up to now have been only applied by the three Executive Committee Agencies—UNDP, UNICEF and UNFPA—are expected in future to also guide the other participating agencies. So will the Harmonized Approach to Cash Transfers (HACT) and the Standard Cost Norms for Vietnam, and information technology.

As these moves towards one set of management practices will also significantly affect UN-Habitat’s operations in Vietnam, the existing administrative arrangements and procedures of UN-Habitat with its own PSD and ROAP, as well with UNON may need to be reviewed.

United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-HABITAT) P. O. Box 30030, 00100 Nairobi GPO KENYA Tel: 254-020-7623120 (Central Office) www.unhabitat.org

HS Number: HS/060/12EISBN Number (Series): 978-92-1-132028-2ISBN Number (Volume): 978-92-1-132475-4