Reports - United Nations Development Programme

3. UNDP’S STRATEGIC POSITIONING AND PROGRAMME RELEVANCE
programme. The role and effectiveness of this Board is as
yet unclear as it is in its initial stages. It is likely that in
order to be fully effective such a Board will require the
continuous and intensive attention and substantive
backstopping of the senior management of the UNDP
Country Office.
(iv) Strategic Challenge 4:
Managing Key Partnerships
With scarce resources and limited capacity in a large
country, partnerships are critical for the UNDP’s
effectiveness. But as in many other dimensions, a clear
sense of priorities is also essential for selecting and
nurturing partnerships, since not all potential partners can
and should be equally attended to. The most important
partnership for the UNDP is with the Government and
its principal agencies and with its UN sister agencies.
Selected other donors, private sector counterparts and
CSOs are also important partners when the joint
programmes are aligned with the UNDP and
Government core priorities.
The National Government: The effective implementation
and financing of the UNDP’s programme
depends critically on the ownership and support
by key national Government Ministries. While the
UNDP has had a direct relationship with line
Ministries, regional administrations and the Prime
Minister’s office in Turkey, its principal counterparts
have been the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) and
the SPO. The MFA does not play a significant role
in domestic economic and social policy, and in the last
few years, the SPO has had a much-reduced role,
leaving other Ministries in the forefront. As a result,
the UNDP’s access to economic and social policy
decision makers has also been limited. With the
SPO’s apparently enhanced role under the current
Government, it is hoped that this access might
improve. In the past, frequent turnover of staff, which
is characteristic of the Turkish system due to party
affiliations with newly elected Governments, has
presented many problems for UNDP programme
implementation. With the current Government expected
to be firmly in place for some years, hopefully this will
be less of an issue in the foreseeable future.
Regional and Local Government Agencies: Despite
its relatively small size, the UNDP has gained
particular credibility and importance through its close
programme partnership with large regional agencies
(GAP) and regional programmes (LEAP). Further
restructuring of these regional administrations is
currently underway, and the role that the UNDP has
played within their geographic areas of concern
positions it well to play an important part in this
process in future. Grassroots programmes through
LA 21, LEAP and GAP have created a strong
platform for the UNDP with local Governments at
the municipal and provincial levels and by extension,
with the Ministry of Interior. Despite the relatively
limited volume of financial resources involved, the
UNDP has gained a considerable repository of
goodwill and trust that should be used as leverage in
the arena of policy dialogue.
The United Nations System in Turkey: Coordination
of the UN system has been most effective and has
received the most praise in the context of
emergencies, first the earthquake and then the
Iraq war. The UNDP, under the leadership of
the Resident Coordinator and with the active
participation of the Deputy Resident Representative
was seen to have made a valuable substantive as well
as administrative contribution to the success of UN
response in both instances. Since the bombings in
Iraq and more recently in Turkey itself, the UNDP
has also taken the lead in security issues, and has
devoted considerable capacity of its office to this
issue. Regular coordination has been less successful
to date, since UN agencies are relatively unfamiliar
with each other’s programmes and projects and
synergies have not been sufficiently explored. It is
expected that greater, more substantive collaboration
could lead to benefits at the project and programme
level, greater leverage in policy dialogue and more
room for the pursuit of priorities defined by the
General Assembly and other UN organs. For
instance, greater coherence among the UN agencies
should enable more effective and active pursuit of
concerns such as the MDGs and human rights
conventions as they apply to the work of UN
agencies. Furthermore, joint advocacy based on a
common understanding of policy priorities should
enable greater priority being attached to issues such
as poverty alleviation in both the poor regions and in
urban centres, population issues, internal migration,
the role of women in society and effective
environmental resources management. This could
further be strengthened by UN agencies reserving
funding to a common pool on specific issues such as
gender and disaster management. As noted earlier,
the UN agencies consulted do not view the 2001
CCA and the UNDAF as effective coordination
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