Joint meeting of the Executive Boards of
UNDP/UNFPA, UNICEF and WFP
New York 23-26 January 2004
Item 2: Simplification and Harmonisation: Role and function of Joint Boards.
Statement by
Mr. Tom Eriksen
Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Norway.
New York 26. January 2004.
Mr. President,
We would like to thank you for the clear and thoughtful note on the future role of the Joint Meeting.
In our view the Joint Meeting has proved to be most useful and welcome. It should be continued and strengthened. The full potential of these sessions has yet to be fully exploited. It is not conducive that the same issues must be discussed and decided on in three different boards. Issues that are relevant for the Funds and Programmes should be deliberated only once. This would make the work and tasks of both Board members and the Funds and Programmes themselves easiser, more focussed and better coordinated. The joint sessions should therefore be given the authority to make formal decisions on the basis of the deliberations held and the reports submitted. An obvious candidate for joint deliberations would be country programme outlines, based on the UNDAFs and the national MDG reports.
The different options presented in the note should not be considered as alternatives, but as useful measures which could be combined to enable us to make full use of the potential of the Joint Meeting. Thus, we welcome the measures suggested to make the sessions more useful. However, only by providing the Joint Meeting with the authority to make formal decisions will we be able to make full use of this valuable forum.
Thank you.