The United Nations Development Programme supports national processes to accelerate the progress of human development with a view to eradicating poverty through development, equitable and sustained economic growth, and capacity development. This means that all UNDP policy advice, technical support, advocacy, and contributions to strengthening coherence in global development must be aimed at one end result: real improvements in people's lives and in the choices and opportunities open to them. Central to the human development approach is the concept of human empowerment, which, in addition to income, treats access to education and health care, freedom of expression, the rule of law, respect for diversity, protection from violence, and the preservation of the environment as essential dimensions of human development and well-being.
UNDP is the UN's global development network, an organization advocating for change and connecting countries to knowledge, experience and resources to help people build a better life. We are on the ground in 166 countries, working with them on their own solutions to global and national development challenges. World leaders have pledged to achieve the Millennium Development Goals, including the overarching goal of cutting poverty in half by 2015. UNDP's network links and coordinates global and national efforts to reach these Goals. Our focus is helping countries build and share solutions to the challenges of:
- Democratic Governance
- Poverty Reduction
- Crisis Prevention and Recovery
- Energy and Environment
- HIV/AIDS
UNDP helps developing countries attract and use aid effectively. In all our activities, we encourage the protection of human rights and the empowerment of women. UNDP has championed this integrative approach to human development since the 1990s, using the Human Development Reports, launched under the leadership of the late Mahbub ul-Haq with Amartya Sen, as important advocacy tools. The annual Human Development Report, commissioned by UNDP, focuses the global debate on key development issues, providing new measurement tools, innovative analysis and often controversial policy proposals. The global Report's analytical framework and inclusive approach carry over into regional, national and local Human Development Reports, also supported by UNDP.
In each country office, the UNDP also serves as the Coordinating Agency for development activities for the United Nations system as a whole. Through such coordination, UNDP seeks to ensure the most effective use of UN and international aid resources.
While South Africa had generally been excluded from the UN system during the apartheid era, the introduction of a democratic Constitution in 1994 enabled it to enter the international fora as an important political and economic contributor to UN bodies and the Non-Aligned Movement. South Africa also contributed regionally, in the African Union and SADC. At the national level, the UN specialized agencies, funds and programmes could now offer assistance to the new ANC government, and agreement on development cooperation with UNDP was signed in October 1994 by President Mandela. However, both sides now had to assume new and unfamiliar roles: The ANC had to transform itself from a liberation movement into a government with a very ambitious agenda, and the UN had to move from a political supporter and platform to a development partner in a country that, in many ways, was different from other African states in which it was working.
From 1994 to 1999, the UN system did not have a single coordinating framework for its engagement with South Africa. Different agencies entered the country at different times, each engaging with the government in terms of its specific mandates. The UN system has grown from those early years to encompass the following eight specialized agencies, funds and programmes, which focus exclusively on South Africa: the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO), United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), UN Population Fund (UNFPA), Joint UN Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), UN Human Settlements Programme (UNHABITAT), UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), UN Information Centre (UNIC) and World Health Organization (WHO). Partly due to South Africa’s geographic location and good infrastructure, a number of UN agencies have located their regional offices there, many of which also cover South Africa in addition to other countries in the subregion. Those UN agencies and bodies include the UNDP Regional Centre, International Labour Organisation (ILO), Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), International Organization for Migration (IOM), UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), World Food Programme (WPF), UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), UNAIDS, Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), UN Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), UN Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), UN Environment Programme (UNEP), UN Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUC), and the recently established UNFPA Regional Office. Most of these regional agencies are active members of the UN Country Team, which comprises 17 UN agencies, funds and programmes and represents the largest array of UN entities in Southern Africa.
Initial cooperation in South Africa focused on development in support of the Reconstruction and Development Programme, drawing especially on UN experience in other African countries. The first country cooperation framework was prepared between 1995 and 1997. The broad objective of the country cooperation framework was poverty reduction within a sustainable human development framework. However, a review mission in 2001 found that, although UNDP’s assistance had made a significant contribution to South Africa’s efforts to reduce poverty and strengthen governance, there were also areas of weakness, which include the following:
1.- The experience and expertise of UNDP in assisting countries in the development of implementation strategies for strengthening delivery mechanisms were not utilized to their fullest extent.
2.- The partnership between the Government of South Africa and UNDP had not been forged effectively. A lack of awareness as to how the respective bodies operated was considered a contributing factor.
3.- The UNDP’s limited resources were spread too thinly across many projects.
The review mission recommended that the subsequent cooperation framework should concentrate on three areas, namely HIV&AIDS, sustainable integrated rural development, and regional integration. Within the evolving UN reform process, a consolidated effort wasmade to ensure coordination among UN development agencies at the country level through a UN Development Assistance Framework (UNDAF). The 2002-2006 UNDAF for South Africa identified three priority areas, based on the findings of the 2001 review mission, round-table discussions involving the UN system, the Government of South Africa, civil society organizations and bilateral development agencies, and mid-term reviews of UNDP, UNFPA and UNICEF programmes.
The current UNDAF aims to align itself with achievement of the MDGs and with government programmes in a ‘cluster’ format, with the UN clusters corresponding to those of the government.
