BACKGROUND PAPER on United Nations Development Programme (UNDP ...

In some countries -- for example, Bolivia -- cutting-edge research resulted
publication of HDRs for major cities. This enabled policy makers to identify
disadvantaged groups within different cities and ways to target them. In Brazil,
similar analysis led the state of Minas Gerais to pass a law, known as the "Robin
Hood Law", giving more of its state budget to the poorest municipalities.
Decentralization of responsibility to local authority is rapidly taking place without the
commensurate decentralization of resources and capacities. Experience shows that
neither capacity nor resources can be mobilized and sustained without real
participation and empowerment of citizens at the local level, particularly citizens'
ability to hold their elected bodies accountable. Only if people are empowered to
manage their affairs to achieve growth with equity and environmental sustainability,
will they participate in the creation of global public goods.
Despite the growing number of community-based organizations and national and
international non-governmental organizations active at the local level, there is
insufficient experience in cross-sectoral development interventions that cut across
levels of government. Yet it is at the local level that development is truly integrated
in all its dimensions -- social, economic, civil, political, cultural, and environmental. It
is here that the opportunity to make a difference is greatest: this is where national
policy and plans interact with the reality of people's lives.
Diagnosis: UNDP is in a position to develop the capacity of municipalities to map,
measure and analyze the following: their institutional environment, the conditions of
poverty and inequality, the factors impacting on sustainable development, as well as
the risks and opportunities arising from climate change and information technology.
Given that UNDP cannot possibly hope to serve the hundreds of thousands of
municipal authorities in the region, information technology will be used to share
information and develop networking approaches.
Policy Formulation: Methodologies developed for the first four Service Lines can
also be adapted to bring stakeholders -- community groups, the private sector, local
government, and others -- together to identify strategies, roles and resources for
sustainable local development, as well as local, provincial and national linkages.
UNDP will help establish a Local Development Website to capture experience and
lessons learned, which will help ensure that citizens have access to information and
knowledge they need to participate in designing local action plans and to hold
elected officials accountable.
Programme Management: UNDP will also develop an e-package for programme
management in local development, that will pull together the experience of the
organization as a whole, as well as the experience of Country Offices in the region
in local development in special development situations.
Regional Programme
The second regional cooperation framework (RCF) for Latin America and the
Caribbean was approved for the period 2001-2005. The RCF is an instrument for
UNDP to promote sustainable human development in Latin America and the
Caribbean and to reaffirm its role towards achieving the United Nations Millennium
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