Attachments
2022 Common Country Analysis Update
With the reform of the UN development system (UNDS), the UN country team (UNCT) is taking new steps to improve the integration, efficiency, and effectiveness of its programming.
The most important instrument to take forward the UNDS reform in Lao PDR is the implementation of Lao PDR-UN Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework 2022-2026 (UNSDCF). The design of this strategic framework took place in 2021 jointly between the Government of Lao PDR, led by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and 25 UN Agencies, Funds and Programmes under the Resident Coordinator’s leadership.
The UNSDCF is aligned with Lao PDR’s 9th National Socio-Economic Development Plan (NSEDP) and built on a thorough and independent Common Country Analysis (CCA) which, in accordance with UNSDCF guidance is a periodic reflection of evolving country contexts, and identified the key development challenges of Lao PDR. To ensure programming remains appropriate and focused on tackling the right issues in the right ways, the CCA is reviewed annually.
This first annual update takes place after the first year of Cooperation Framework implementation and reflects new developments and new evidence that has become available since the initial CCA in 2021. It should be read in conjunction with that analysis as a baseline and should not be seen as a standalone and comprehensive analysis in itself.
The CCA, analysing the development context, is alongside the Annual Report, which analyses the UN’s programmatic achievements and challenges against the UNSDCF’s results framework, a key ingredient to the annual evidence-based strategic and programmatic planning between the Government of Lao PDR and the United Nations (the Joint Workplans). To facilitate the transition between evidence generation and strategic planning, the CCA is primarily structured against the outputs and outcomes of the UNSDCF, which are the agreed priorities of the Lao PDR Government and UN (see annex 1).
The CCA update also uses a simple colourcoding that helps visualize changes to the development context, and in particular emerging challenges that would require changes to UN programming (see table on the left).
Sources are provided in footnotes.
The CCA update was prepared by the Programme Oversight Group (POG) with inputs received from outcome and output leads of the UNSDCF between October and November 2022. It was endorsed by the UNCT and shared with the Lao PDR Government in December 2022.