PRESENT IN 170 COUNTRIES, THE UNITED NATIONS DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMME (UNDP) IS A GLOBAL DEVELOPMENT NETWORK ADVOCATING FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT, POVERTY ERADICATION, AND RESILIENCE BUILDING.

UNDP STRATEGIC PLAN

In 2022, the first year of UNDP’s current Strategic Plan, 2022-2025, we scaled up our delivery, as reflected in the plan’s four moonshots. We supported developing countries to not just cope but seek better ways to manage uncertainty and improve their progress as a whole. UNDP has an essential role in the development promise, globally and in countries in every region. We used our resources effectively and transparently in 2022, achieving a delivery of $4.8 billion, the highest level in more than a decade. UNDP balanced its institutional budget for the sixth year in a row. Efficiency gains for 2022 reached $24.4 million, including $7.1 million from entity-specific gains and $17.1 million from implementing the Business Operating System (BOS). All internal efficiency gains are redirected to programme activities.

We met 95 per cent of planned programmatic targets and invested 91 cents of every dollar in programmes and services to achieve development results. Over 80 per cent of regular programme resources went to low-income countries. Sixty-six per cent of our programmes made gender equality a principal or significant objective. In the first year of our new Gender Equality Strategy, 90 country offices translated its objectives into concrete, country-level plans. Continued evolution of our business systems is helping to reshape UNDP to meet changing demands. In 2022, our business services sent staff and supplies to over 170 countries and territories and supported 85 United Nations entities. A surge to meet massive humanitarian and development needs resulted in a record procurement volume of $2.8 billion. Our organizational culture continues to both attract and reward development expertise from across the world—and embraces constant learning and innovation. We are more efficient and capable in managing our talent as evidenced by a series of awards for our People for 2030 Strategy. All these measures in 2022 translated into improved lives for millions of people, from the woman with a first chance to start her own business in Afghanistan to the farmer planting seeds that can withstand drought in Syria to the family with its first household connection to modern power in Burkina Faso.

PREFERRED PARTNER

Looking to the private sector, UNDP is developing a new policy on intellectual property rights to navigate constraints on our ability to engage with small and medium enterprises and start-up firms, and devising a tailored private sector partnership approach for fragile and crisis contexts. We continue to expand collaboration with the international financial institutions (IFIs), implementing $292 million in financing from 12 of them in over 43 countries in 2022. We are breaking new ground in how we partner, including with the Inter-American Development Bank, Islamic Development Bank and European Investment Bank. We have set a goal of applying new instruments for engagement with at least one IFI in every region, towards systematically scaling up support to countries to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

UNDP in 2022 continued to be a preferred partner, supporting more projects and the associated billions of dollars in development finance from major vertical funds than any other international organization. The funds include the Green Climate Fund, the Global Environment Facility (GEF), the Multilateral Fund for the Montreal Protocol and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.

We also continue to strengthen ties within the United Nations, having transitioned from being reform-ready to maximizing results in a repositioned development system. UNDP and United Nations partners in 2022 advanced major initiatives in finance, climate change, biodiversity, digital inclusion, gender equality and human rights, and made strides towards joined-up humanitarian, development and peace efforts. Updated joint programme guidance, for example, already applied in Yemen, takes a lighter, faster approach to work in exceptional circumstances, while cutting costs.

In 2022, 25 million people accessed services to exit multidimensional poverty against a targeted 100 million. We supported elections with over 82 million registered voters in 2022 and expect to support polls with another 400 million registered voters in 2023 well on the way to a targeted 800 million. UNDP is currently assisting energy programmes in 31 countries to deliver connections to 225 million people against a planned 500 million. A variety of UNDP-initiated financing tools are helping to align $500 billion with sustainable development, halfway to the $1 trillion target.

In 2022, our assistance helped at least 11 million people caught in catastrophes gain em-ployment and improve their livelihoods. In 40 countries, legislative changes and digital solutions enabled 3.3 million people to obtain a legal identity and choices such as to vote and own property. These are all critical stepping-stones to better individual lives. But they need to be scaled up, a commitment that UNDP has made and can increasingly demonstrate. We also have to anticipate diverse paths and unexpected shifts in direction.

I’m pleased to report that, based on results from 2022, all six signature solutions in our Strategic Plan are increasingly part of helping to steer the shifts that a development reset re-quires. The Annual Report details many examples. I will share only a few, on social protection, climate and gender equality. In 2022, for instance, we helped 47 countries to improve social protection. We know that this is among the best ways to correct systemic inequality and protect people at risk of being left behind. It also gives people the confidence to remain in school or start a small business; they know they have a fallback position. In Kazakhstan, UNDP supported the introduction of the Digital Family Card platform covering the entire population of 19.5 million people. The system is designed to catch people who are not receiving services they need. It has already notified more than 51,000 citizens to apply for benefits.

Our capacity to move towards a better future depends on being able to anticipate it but also on restoring trust in the development promise. One of the clearest breakdowns in trust globally is increasingly linked to a global financial system that is perceived as not up to the challenges of our time. This is a challenge that institutions central to the multilateral system and their shareholders have recognized and are addressing with reforms.

UNDP has contributed empirical evidence and policy analysis to the Secretary-General’s call for transforming the system so that it delivers for all countries—and for making a massive boost in investment in the SDGs in developing countries. We have also continued to help galvanize the push to go beyond gross domestic product as the primary measure of the health of economies, now a central item on the agendas for the 2023 SDG Summit and the 2024 Summit of the Future. Amid current calls for austerity, we have marshalled evidence to counter what we see as a threat to sustainable development. Now more than ever, we have to make the right investment choices.

Edited from remarks given the June 2023 Annual Executive Board Meeting.