Reports - United Nations Development Programme

COUNTRY EVALUATION: ASSESSMENT OF DEVELOPMENT RESULTS – TURKEY
70
There is currently little understanding and not much
apparent interest in Turkey in the MDGs, as all eyes
are turned to the EU accession challenge. However,
the ADR Evaluation Team believes that Turkey faces
major long-term challenges in meeting the MDGs
and that doing so is indeed consistent with and
complementary to Turkey’s goal of successful
integration with Europe.
Focus and build on the four established core
business lines of the UNDP in Turkey: governance,
poverty, environment and gender. Maintain the
UNDP’s capacity for coordinating emergency
responses in case of natural disasters or other crises.
These are key areas for Turkey’s long-term
development. They are areas where the UNDP in
Turkey has a strong track record, and they are at the
core of its institutional mandate worldwide. While
there are other international and local partners
working in these areas, the UNDP has a clear role
to play as further explained in the next
recommendation. In addition, the UNDP in Turkey
must continue to stand ready to play the coordinating
role in case of natural disasters or other crises.
In these four areas, leverage the UNDP’s experience
in participatory and transparent capacity building
for local Governments and communities and in
dealing with regional disparities. Given Turkey’s
history with a highly centralised state, the country
faces major challenges both in its own modernisation
and in preparation for EU accession. It must
strengthen what are currently very weak,
decentralised capacities at the regional, local and
community level, and it has to close the gaps between
the more and the less advanced regions in the country
in the face of major regional disparities. Turkey and
its major international funding partners (the EU,
EIB, WB, major private investors such as BTC, etc.)
will benefit from the UNDP’s track record as well as
its international experience and competence in these
areas. Looking ahead, the UNDP will have to
consider how best to adapt longstanding flagship
programmes, or whether to open up new programmes
responsive to the new challenges and opportunities
in Turkey.
Assess all new initiatives, whether driven by UNDP
Headquarter priorities, by Government or partner
demands, or by the UNDP Country Office, against
whether they pass the filter of the preceding three
recommendations of the UNDP’s priorities and
comparative advantage in Turkey. The UNDP will
always be subject to pressures to take on new tasks
and new priorities. Given its limited resource base,
there will be the risk of being stretched too thin
across too many areas and activities. Hence clear
focus and disciplined selectivity will be critical for the
UNDP’s long-term effectiveness. So, for example,
new initiatives of cooperating with the private sector
should be channelled and designed to coincide clearly
with one or more of the four core areas of the
UNDP’s priorities in Turkey.
Build on the UNDP’s international standing,
capacity and experience in contributing to Turkey’s
development challenge while continuing to
strengthen the strong national capacity and
networks that the UNDP has built over the years
in Turkey. The UNDP has demonstrated that it can
successfully connect international advocacy with
national capacity building and project support. In
recent years, however, it has not utilised as much of its
international expertise in local programmes as might
have been desirable and necessary for adding
maximum value, given the UNDP’s international
standing, competencies and capacity. For the future,
it therefore needs to package international and
national expertise for optimal programme design and
national capacity building. The Turkey Country
Office needs to draw actively on UNDP
Headquarters, the UNDP office in Bratislava and, as
relevant, on other agencies to ensure effective
international inputs into its work in Turkey.
Systematically evaluate and pursue the
sustainability and scaling-up potential of UNDP
programmes and projects. The UNDP’s
effectiveness will depend critically on its ability to
leverage relatively small and limited interventions
into sustained and scaled-up efforts that go beyond
the small pilot projects, training events or
conferences. This requires a combination of the
following inputs:
• systematic extraction and dissemination of
lessons learned through monitoring and
evaluation of all programmes and projects
• exploring and promoting policy, legal and regulatory
reforms based on project-level experience
• advocacy at the national or regional level in
support of such reforms
• linking up with, or supporting the creation of,
institutional capacity in regional or national
Government agencies or in CSOs, which
will carry the agenda beyond the UNDP’s
pilot engagements