New York — In light of developments in the region, UNDP is deferring its upcoming five-year programmes for Yemen, Bahrain and Syria pending further review. The decision was taken by UNDP to ensure that new programmes address the evolving development needs of the people in each country.
The 2012-2017 draft Country Programmes, prepared prior to the recent crisis, were scheduled to be submitted to UNDP’s governing body, the Executive Board —comprised of 36 Member States— in June for discussion. As events have unfolded in the region, UNDP formed the view that a deferral of submission of the next programme for these countries to its Executive Board was necessary.
In 2010, UNDP Yemen programmes and projects delivered US$ 16,530,000, which exceeded the 2010 planned target by US$ 2,904,000. UNDP Yemen has clustered its interventions into three main areas with one being crosscutting: 1) Governance 2) Pro-poor Economic Growth and 3) Gender being the cross-cutting intervention. The UNDP Yemen Country Office structure has two programmatic teams, 1) the Pro-poor Economic Growth Team and 2) the Governance and Gender Team.
All costs for UNDP’s presence and work in Bahrain, which programmes and projects delivered US $1,621,000 in 2010, are contributed by the Government. UNDP has ongoing dialogue with a number of government institutions to review their development needs and build strong partnership to meet all MDGs and identify key areas of importance to the Kingdom. Practical work has been conducted in support of key national strategies including National Education, Social Development, Youth, Environment, and HIV/AIDs strategies.
UNDP core funding of its current 2006-2011 country programme in Syria is under US$1 million per year. Beyond that, it is necessary to mobilize funding for specific programmes. In a middle income country like Syria, the host government meets the majority of programme costs, with donors meeting others. UNDP’s programmes in Syria cover five areas: promoting economic growth; enhancing institutional, administrative and legal frameworks; strengthening environmental management; improving disaster prevention and management; and fighting HIV/AIDS. UNDP interacts with the Planning and International Co-operation Commission, and with the Ministries of Foreign Affairs, Economy & Trade, Communications, Local Administration, Tourism, Justice, Social Affairs & Labor, Health, Transport, Electricity, Information, and Environment.