"An empowered joint meeting of boards could provide the decision-making and monitoring needed in regard to the unified UN country programmes," said H.E. Ambassador Johan L. Løvald at the Informal Meeting of the General Assembly on United Nations System-wide Coherence Governance 17 April 2008.
09/05/2008 :: Mr. Co-chair,
As Member States, we have a responsibility to ensure effective intergovernmental governance that is responsive to national demands and that underpin national ownership. If coherence is a goal at the country level, we also need to consider how we can maintain coherence at the central level, including in our governance structures.
The Panel report recognizes, and rightly so, the need to strengthen the ECOSOC. In the words of the report: “The Council needs to improve its operational and coordination functions with regard to the entire system.” Important steps in this regard are already under way. In particular the establishment of the Development Coordination Forum (DCF). We look forward to its implementation and believe that experiences from the DCF should be gained before we consider further proposals, including the Panel’s recommendation of a Global Leaders Forum.
Of a more urgent nature, however, is the need to consider how we as Member States address the issue of “One programme document” now being pursued by more and more developing countries. The existing governance structures force a government to go through a complicated, bureaucratic and time consuming approval process of several Governing Bodies that includes breaking down their common programme document into “organisation specific documents”. This is an unnecessary burden on host countries. A way to remedy this unfortunate situation could be to make use of existing governance structures such as the joint meeting of boards of the UNDP/UNFPA/WFP and UNICEF. An empowered joint meeting of boards could provide the decision-making and monitoring needed in regard to the unified UN country programmes.
Mr. Co-chair,
Our previous discussion in this format has also emphasized the importance of governance, not least in relation to pilot countries. Although we shall evaluate the pilots later, the fact that the One UN project is proceeding well in all pilot countries does raise the question of support from headquarters level. In order to proceed in an orderly and transparent manner, the General Assembly should consider how it best can contribute to consolidating the processes presently under way in the pilot countries. We have heard this call for endorsement and support from pilot countries and we should not let this call go unheeded.
It seems to this delegation that we should be able to lend our support to the One UN programs as being pursued, without prejudging the outcome of an evaluation that will come later. At present there is a disconnect between what is happening on the ground and what is happening here at headquarters. This session of the General Assembly could do much to bridge this gap.
Finally, as regards the question of gender we agree fully with what was said by Sweden on behalf of the Nordic countries. It is also an important governance question. The present General Assembly should deal with this issue in a concrete and forward-looking manner.
Thank you.
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