Pacific Islands
From UN Coherence Country Wiki
Information
September 2008
Progress towards UN Coherence in Pacific Islands
UNICEF Pacific Islands is making strides in progressing the UN Coherence agenda. One of the key activities under this initiative is the One-UN Fund for Kiribati. Several steps have been made so far:
1) Commitment of AusAID to provide about $2m per year for the One-UN Fund for Kiribati.
2) Agreement by the Kiribati Government for the support to be directed through the UN.
3) Substantial work by UN agencies to define the framework of collaboration and programming under the One-UN Fund for Kiribati.
Under the agreed arrangements, UNDP will be the Admin Agency to manage the Funds with the pass-through modality. UNICEF, as the Joint Presence host agency will also have some important roles to play in the partnership.
In the first year of implementation of the One-UN Fund for Kiribati, 8 agencies expressed interest to get fund allocation (FAO, ILO, UNESCO, UNFPA, UNICEF, UNIFEM, UNDP and WHO). Allocations have been indicatively made on the basis of an arbitrary (but agreed upon) format that partly relied on current matching funds. Future allocations will rely on programme performance.
Regarding governance arrangements, the UN has proposed a robust M&E framework supported by outsourced regular review by an independent third party. While the UNCT will support the UNRC in managing the initiative, 'the Group of Participating Agencies' will be the UNCT subset with major responsibilities in the process.
Important timelines for the One-UN Fund for Kiribati are: 06 October 2008 [2009 draft annual work-plans submitted]; 09 October 2008 [UNCT agreement on documentation (AWPs, ToRs, etc.) to be submitted to the Technical Consultations and Joint Strategy Meeting (JSM)]; 22 October 2008 [JSM in Tarawa, Kiribati]; and 24 October 2008 [UNCT meeting in Suva, Fiji, to review JSM recommendations. There will be a UNDOCO-supported consultant to assist in the JSM process.
