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Programme Priorities |
| National capacity-building | |
Reproductive health, including family planning and sexual health Adolescent reproductive health Reducing maternal mortality Emergency assistance in refugee situations HIV/AIDS Population and development strategies Advocacy Women's empowerment and gender issues Strengthening programme effectiveness Decentralization National capacity-building Monitoring and evaluation Training Contraceptive requirements and logistics management needs Partnership with NGOs and civil society ICPD+5
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UNFPA took an important step forward in 1997 in its efforts to help build national capacity in programme countries with the publication of new Programme Guidelines, which were issued in November as part of a revised Policies and Procedures Manual. The new Manual provides instructions and support to help headquarters and field staff translate the Fund's responsibilities under the ICPD Programme of Action into concrete actions. In listing its priority objectives, the new Programme Guidelines state at the outset that the detailed guidelines "underscore the importance of building national capacity in programme countries to enable them to achieve the goals and objectives recommended in the ICPD Programme of Action". With the publication and use of the new guidelines, the programming process itself has been streamlined in a way that reflects the Fund's commitment to utilizing and building national capacity to design and manage population programmes. The Fund has also incorporated an assessment of national requirements for capacity-building into its main programming exercise, the Country Population Assessment (formerly the Programme Review and Strategy Development exercise). Such an assessment involves a concerted effort, in consultation with national counterparts and other development partners, to identify the key inputs required for national capacity-building and sustainable programme support. Whereas in the past the focus of UNFPA assistance had been on strengthening technical and institutional capacities, the Fund is now focusing more on developing the skills and competencies needed to formulate, manage, monitor and evaluate programmes. The Fund's Country Support Teams are essential in such efforts. They have been instrumental in mobilizing national expertise, where available, as well as transferring knowledge and skills to national counterparts and promoting self-reliance at the country level. Since one of the primary tasks of the CSTs is to help build national capacity in the countries they assist, the CSTs provide technical backstopping only if national expertise is not available. During the course of 1997, UNFPA also supported two significant studies that will help the Fund's work in building national capacity in years to come. The first of these was a year-long evaluation that resulted in a report, "An Assessment of Execution Modalities for UNFPA-Support Programmes", published in November. The report is intended to provide guidance for the selection of executing agencies with a view to improving programme performance; its ultimate aim is to help the Fund increase the execution of UNFPA-assisted programmes by national institutions, both governmental and non-governmental, in programme countries. One of the major recommendations of the report was that this should be achieved in a flexible manner. For example, a Government could be the overall executing agency for an activity, but some functions, such as procurement or provision of international experts, could still be implemented by UNFPA or an international NGO. A second important study was "Absorptive Capacity and Financial Resource Utilization in Population Programmes", which was conducted for the Fund by the Danish consulting firm COWI in response to an Executive Board decision asking for such a study with the aim of presenting concrete recommendations on how absorptive capacity could be increased, particularly in African countries. COWI conducted case studies in five programme countries – Benin, Ghana, Mozambique, Zambia and Nepal – and presented a list of 12 recommendations for UNFPA action. These recommendations serve as the basis for a report that UNFPA is submitting to the Executive Board at its annual session 1998.
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| Foreword | Introduction | UNFPA in 1997 | Programme Priorities | |