Executive Summary
This United Nations Development Assistance Framework (UNDAF) covers the period 2010-2015, and has been designed to support Tajikistan's goals for its National Development Strategy (NDS) and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Developed through an extensive consultative process involving all stakeholders, it is also part of the donors' Joint Country Partnership Strategy (JCPS), which came about as a result of the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness. Therefore, this document complements the work of other donors, and builds on the UN's comparative advantages.
The UNDAF has four pillars. In the area of Poverty Reduction and Governance, the UNDAF aims to jointly enhance good governance, as well as economic and social growth, in order to reduce poverty, unlock human potential, protect rights, and improve core public functions. To this end, the UN and its partners will focus on capacity-development as a way to enhance poverty reduction and economic development programmes, with a particular emphasis on the rural poor, women and marginalised people. It will also strengthen national capacities to implement democratic governance practices grounded in international standards and law, and to effectively and strategically plan, finance and implement development initiatives in an inclusive and participatory manner. Recognizing the close interconnectedness between environment, poverty and development, the UN will develop national capacity to integrate environmentally sustainable planning for economic growth and poverty reduction.
For Food and Nutrition Security, the UN and its partners will work on the following objectives: to strengthen national institutions such that policy will be robust and datadriven; promote higher levels of agricultural production and profitability; ensure that vulnerable households have the financial and physical resources required for their own food security; and improve food safety and quality, and dietary behaviours. UN will support integration of principles of sustainable ecosystem and natural resources management in the major sectoral and territorial national and sub-national development planning.
In Clean Water, Sustainable Environment and Energy, the UNDAF will promote the sustainable management of the environment, and energy and natural resources. The UN team will support government to improve the design and implementation of national and trans-national policies and agreements covering environmental and natural resources; this will include an improved policy framework and management of water resources, from a regional perspective and at the local level. The UN also plans to help bring about an increased access to alternative and renewable alternative technologies promoting the energy efficiency measures including the awareness-raising on benefits of energy saving, measures to rationalize energy demand by changing tariff policy. In doing these activities, it is anticipated that sustainable natural resource management will be more widely understood and practiced, particularly in the areas of land management and soil conservation.
In the area of Quality Basic Services, the UNDAF aims to improve access to fundamental services in health, education, and social welfare for the most vulnerable. In the health system, the UNDAF will work to strengthen the capacities of the Ministry of Health, particularly in governance, and financial and human resource management, and provision of safe blood supplies. It will also build the system's service delivery capacities in the areas of maternal and child health; and in the combating (and in the case of malaria, elimination) of communicable diseases, particularly HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis. In the area of education, the UNDAF is committed to ensuring that more children complete their basic education, particularly girls; that students in roughly one third of all general secondary schools acquire certain life skills; and that a policy for ensuring wider access to pre-school education is developed based on scalable and affordable models. In the area of social protection, the UNDAF anticipates that by 2015, vulnerable groups will have acquired greater capacities to find employment; the Ministry of Labour and Social Protection (MoLSP) will be better able to develop policy, assess needs and tailor social assistance (through reliance on an up-to-date standards-based management information system); the use of social workers and community-based family support services will be more common; and the number of children in institutions will have substantially declined.
The events of recent years have shown that Tajikistan remains vulnerable to crisis. Much of the capacity development targeted by this UNDAF will help the country prevent, mitigate and withstand emergencies and natural disasters. Three of the UNDAF pillars have incorporated outcomes on disaster risk management. They focus on improving early warning and information systems; ensuring the right policies and procedures are in place; developing prevention and mitigation capacities in the face of emergencies; supporting early recovery linked with mid- and longer-term development; and ensuring emergency supplies are available in the country.
The total anticipated resource commitment to be mobilized for the UNDAF is approximately $281 million USD. This will be allocated amongst the pillars as follows: Poverty Reduction and Governance (9%); Food and Nutrition Security (13%); Clear Water, Sustainable Environment and Energy (9%); and Quality Basic Services (69%).
The Thematic Working Groups (TWG) will oversee each of the four pillars, as well as monitor and report on progress. UN agencies will continue to work within specific purposebuilt coordination bodies to facilitate UNDAF implementation. The Groups will also liaise closely with broader donor coordination bodies, and where feasible, promote the use of national coordination bodies to oversee the activities of the UNDAF.