UNDP's 2011-2012 Annual Report describes activities and achievements under each of UNDP's four focal areas: poverty reduction and achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs); democratic governance; crisis prevention and recovery; and environment and sustainable development, including access to sustainable energy.
19 June 2012: The UN Development Programme (UNDP) released its 2011-2012 Annual Report, “The Sustainable Future We Want,” which outlines UNDP’s field programmes and its contributions to raising awareness and changing policy.
The report includes chapters describing activities and achievements under each of UNDP’s four focal areas: poverty reduction and achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs); democratic governance; crisis prevention and recovery; and environment and sustainable development, including access to sustainable energy. Each chapter includes an “up close” section spotlighting a UNDP initiative: improving the lives of people with HIV/AIDs in the Pacific; increasing public consultations in Viet Nam; rebuilding in Haiti; and reviving mangroves in Senegal.
On poverty eradication, UNDP developed the MDG Acceleration Framework to implement individual acceleration action plans in over 30 countries by the end of 2012. Under crisis prevention, UNDP responded to the Horn of Africa famine by employing people to plant trees, distributing energy-saving stoves and rehabilitating social infrastructure, including canals and water catchments.
The report describes UNDP’s efforts to help countries adopt initiatives to increase access to sustainable energy, combat climate change and achieve a common future. For instance, UNDP and the World Bank provided an off-grid network of micro-hydropower systems in Nepal, an initiative that has now reached ten million people. A Peruvian programme provided energy efficient cookstoves to 175,000 households, simultaneously addressing climate change, forest preservation and health. UNDP also launched “Catalyzing Climate Finance” a guide for how governments can identify and implement a mix of public policies and attract clean energy investments and financing.
Additional highlighted results include: publishing a Caribbean region Human Development Report (HDR); rehabilitating around 20,000 hectares of forest in the nyangani mountain range in Zimbabwe, home to forest leopards, baboons, hyenas, 150 bird species and about 20 species of fish, with GEF funding; in Pakistan, protecting and sustainably managing a juniper forest ecosystem in Ziarat district to help change policies in the forest sector and providing, free of charge, 12 solar energy systems in ten remotely located villages where people were previously using juniper wood and kerosene as energy sources; in the Philippines, supporting the government in adopting wide-reaching policies on energy-efficient lighting systems.
The report also includes programmatic and organizational data and stories, including on UNDP expenditures by focal area and region and on its thematic trust funds. [Publication: UNDP Annual Report]