Here is an update on the meeting I attended this afternoon on behalf of DGG.
Meeting Summary
1. The meeting was chaired by the AA who in doing so provided her inputs on all of the suggested changes received from BDP and BCPR. She started with
BCPR, followed by HIV (as Jeff had to leave), DG, EEG and PG.
2. BCPR: proposal is to reduce outcomes from 9 to 6, bearing in mind that two of of the old 9 outcomes have 0 countries reporting. After Martha Ruedas
presented, Rebeca right away started to discuss the connections with the governance outcomes. He message was clear: we need to clearly differentiate
what CPR does from what DG works on. And she gave the example of transitional justice which in her view only applies to post-conflict countries. She suggested that BDP and BCPR should work more closely together to sort this out. But she also said that DG should not have any “conflict” related outcomes and immediately pointed out that she was in total disagreement with the changes DG had suggested for outcome 2.6 Access to Justice. She requested that we keep the old 2.6
3. HIV: HIV introduced health as part of its outcomes. Rebeca challenged this and suggested that UNDP does not do health. She suggested than instead
HIV should introduce the inclusion and participation angle in the wording of the outcomes, etc.
4. DG: I made a brief presentation on DG changes and mentioned in passing that we have done a thorough analysis of the ROAR data which we completed in October. She requested to have a copy of this analysis. She also said she like very much the wording we have provided for merging of 2.3 and 2.1 but
said that we should to keep it simple and remove “support national planning strategies and policies”. A long discussion ensued after I presented the Supra outcome approach for local governance but in the end there was agreement to drop this. Instead, she suggested DG beefs up its local governance outcome and do not be concerned with other practices who work at the local level
5. EEG: the discussion here were essentially focused on the links between poverty and environment. The issue of UNEP and UNDP came up and he line of
defense for UNDP is that all of our EEG work has a pro-poor angle. EGG agreed to revised once again the changed outcomes submitted. She did suggest
that donors and ExB members are asking UNDP to beef up this links and even merge these two practices in the long term…
6 PG: is reducing its outcomes to 3-4. The discussion here was centered on the MAF role and the fact that at this point in time simply supporting Nation MDG strategies will not fly as it is too late do this. The issue of trade and aid coordination also came up. The former will not have a dedicated outcome whereas the latter will have to integrated into one of the PG outcomes.
7. At the end of the meeting Rebeca asked all of us to submit revised outcomes by 10am tomorrow. She also said that if she did not like the new wording she will edit the text herself. She did call this a direct threat. We all left laughing (not sure why though…)
Follow-ups.
1. We need revised wording for 2.1/2.3 fusion. I will suggest:
– Access to information and civic engagement through CSO and other non-state actors to reinforce accountability and transparency
or
– Access to information and civic engagement through CSO and other non-state actors to reinforce accountability and transparency, including use of social media
(if we really want to be ready for the nearby future)
2. We need new wording for the local governance outcome. Here we have bit of a complication as the overall 2.4 outcome also includes national and
regional which indirectly refers to public administration reform, etc. I will suggest Patrick reworks this one out.
3. There is a meeting with Jason tomorrow morning at 9:30 to discuss before inputs are sent to ExO.
