Reports - United Nations Development Programme

COUNTRY EVALUATION: ASSESSMENT OF DEVELOPMENT RESULTS – TURKEY
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programmes, including disaster management, support
for Turkey as a regional support centre, and support
for the UN Drug Control Programme (UNDCP).
The themes of “poverty” and “poverty reduction” do
not figure explicitly in the 5th Country Programme. This
reflects the fact that in 1994, when the Programme was
prepared, the Turkish authorities were not inclined to
subscribe to poverty reduction as an explicit objective, and
UNDP priorities were less clearly directed to poverty
reduction than is the case today. Of course, many aspects
of social development and reduction of disparities were
consistent with a poverty reduction strategy as is reflected
in the fact that many of the initiatives started under the
5th Country Programme could readily be subsumed
under the poverty agenda of the subsequent CCF.
Of special note is that many of the flagship
programmes that have dominated the UNDP’s activities
appear in the 5th Country Programme: National Agenda
21 (which gave rise to LA 21 following the HABITAT-II
Conference), the GAP Region Programme, the work on
environment and gender issues, disaster management, and
the preparation of NHDRs and support for TCDC.
At the end of the 5th Country Programme 1995-
1999, an extension was made to continue programmes for
another year through 2000. This was to enable the first
CCF to be harmonised with the programme cycles of
other UN Development Group (UNDG) agencies as well as
Turkey’s 8th Five-Year Development Plan (2001-2005).
(ii) CCA and UNDAF
In connection with UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s
reform programme launched in 1997, Turkey was selected
as a pilot country for testing a new approach for improved
UN inter-agency cooperation. This included preparation
of a CCA as well as a UNDAF.
The preparation of the CCA for Turkey was started
in 1998, but delayed due to the intervening earthquake
which absorbed most of the UNDP’s and other UN
agencies’ time and resources during 1999. It was finally
published in December 2000. The CCA consists of a
detailed review of eleven UN conventions, conferences
and summits and assesses the progress with
implementation under each of them. The CCA
concludes by identifying four priority areas for UN
involvement in Turkey:
Governance and participatory development
Reduction of socio-economic and regional disparities
Gender equality
Increased awareness of UN conventions and support
for their implementation
The CCA did a thorough job in laying out for
each of the eleven areas reviewed the expectations,
commitments, progress with legal and institutional
reforms, status and issues. However, there is no discussion
of overlaps across areas, and few specifics of progress
against monitorable results targets. There are hundreds of
recommendations without any prioritisation or sequencing.
Based on the CCA, the UNDAF was prepared and
published in March 2001. It covers the activities and
programmes of the UN Resident Coordinator,
International Labour Organisation (ILO), Food and
Agricultural Organisation (FAO), UNDCP, UNDP,
UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR),
UN Information Centre (UNIC), UN Children’s
Fund (UNICEF) and UN Industrial Development
Organisation (UNIDO). The key goal for the UNDAF
was to focus on the full implementation of the
UN conventions. There was a notable absence of any
reference to the Government’s own development
programme embodied in the 8th Five-Year Development
Plan (although this was referenced in the CCA, which the
UNDAF drew upon). The UNDAF proposed to pursue
the four priority areas identified by the CCA for
UN involvement in Turkey (see above). For each area,
objectives were defined, implementation strategies
presented and a list of agency-specific contributions or
actions included. In the case of the UNDP, 34 action
items were listed in the UNDAF.
The UNDAF also included detailed steps for followup,
including the setting up of four working groups (one
per priority area), with participation of the Government,
Non Governmental Organisations (NGOs) and private
partners. Action plans were to be prepared for each area
and annual reviews were to be conducted by the UNCT
jointly with the Government.
Judging from the comments made by current
members of the UNCT to the Turkey ADR Evaluation
Team during its January mission to Turkey, the CCA and
UNDAF exercise was not as effective as envisaged.
Individual agencies continued their own programmes
largely independently from one other, the follow-up steps
often fell by the wayside, and there was little apparent
ownership of the Government or other Turkish
stakeholders in the process. Apparently the only lasting
result of the UNDAF exercise was the setting up of four
inter-agency working groups dealing with cross-cutting
priority issues: gender, HIV/AIDS, sustainable rural
development and food security, and MDGs. A new
UNDAF process is now underway (see below).