30 May 2015: The UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) held two workshops and a high-level retreat in May, as part of a dialogue on the longer-term positioning of the UN development system in the context of the post-2015 development agenda. The workshops addressed governance, organizational arrangements, capacity, and impact and partnership approaches, and the retreat concluded the first phase of the dialogue, which launched in December 2014 and included two other workshops and a civil society briefing.
The workshop on governance (workshop 3 of the dialogue) took place on 13 May 2015, at UN Headquarters in New York, US. Discussions highlighted the need to, inter alia: consider how different stakeholders, including civil society and the private sector, can have a voice within UN governing bodies; make transparency, effectiveness and accountability for results the organizing principles of the specific governance structures of various UN entities; make governance structures in UN entities more equitable through appropriate representation, and more effective through enhanced expertise of its members; develop stronger capacity for horizontal coordination at both the intergovernmental and inter-agency levels, in order to strengthen complementarities and synergies; and ensure readily available and accessible information for decision-making, including improved, reliable and consistent data, information and analysis to drive system-wide coherence and effectiveness.
The workshop on organizational arrangements, capacity, and impact and partnership approaches (workshop 4 of the dialogue), took place on 27 May 2015, at the Westin Hotel in New York, US. Key messages highlighted the importance of: coordination but also flexibility and adaptability so as to take into account the diversity of the UN development system; strengthening the use of national capacities, systems and institutions, especially in the areas of procurement, financial management, monitoring, reporting and evaluation where capacities are currently insufficiently used; ensuring that partnerships are fully aligned with UN goals, principles and standards; and ensuring that the Quadrennial Comprehensive Policy Review (QCPR) 2016 gives a clear, strategic vision to the UN development system in its support to the implementation of the post-215 development agenda. A participant noted that “the more ambiguous the QCPR, the more the tendency to micro-manage it.”
The retreat took place on 29-30 May 2015, at the Greentree Foundation in Manhasset, New York. Closing the first phase of the dialogue, it aimed to identify strategic priorities that could constitute key elements of consideration for the second phase. Suggestions from participants included: leveraging and tapping into regional capacities to support and strengthen gains at both national and global level; the need for the UN system to provide specialized, differentiated, flexible and timely support to countries, and to work more effectively in crisis contexts; providing the UN development system with the means to implement its mandates; exploring different options for a new funding architecture; enhancing the role of ECOSOC in ensuring strategic, horizontal, system-wide guidance and leadership, and particularly to bridge the gap between the humanitarian and development sectors; ensuring that the UN development system has the “right kind” of people, competencies and incentives in the right places, and undergoing a rethinking and possibly a rationalization of its staff and presence, particularly at country level; improving coherence of results-based management and reporting across entities, including with a view to enabling a better measurement of the results of the UN system as a whole; and leveraging and fostering an inclusive space for all development actors.
The second phase of the dialogue will be launched in late 2015 to inform the outcome of the next UN General Assembly (UNGA) resolution on the QCPR – the mechanism through which the UNGA assesses the effectiveness, efficiency, coherence and impact of the UN development system – to be adopted in December 2016. This second phase is expected to include two retreats and three workshops taking place between November 2015 and April 2016. [ECOSOC Dialogue Roadmap] [ECOSOC QCPR and Dialogue Webpage] [ECOSOC Vice-President Summary of Workshop 3] [ECOSOC Vice-President Summary of Workshop 4][ECOSOC Vice-President Summary of Retreat 1] [IISD RS Story on Workshop 1 (Functions)] [IISD RS Story on Workshop 2 (Funding)] [IISD RS Story on Civil Society Hearing]