UN Multi-Country Offices in Fiji, FSM & Samoa conclude Development Partner consultations on incoming Cooperation Framework

Participants from the three offices in Fiji, Micronesia, and Samoa were joined by partners and colleagues from the Cook Islands, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Nauru, Niue, Palau, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu, and Vanuatu.

The incoming Cooperation Framework forms a blueprint for the work of the UN across 14 Pacific Island countries over the next five years (2023-2027), and consultations with partners, donors, CROP agencies, CSOs and other key partners, is crucial to ensuring inclusivity, meaningfulness and relevance in the work of the UN for the next five years.

It also guides the process of supporting Pacific Island nations to achieve their sustainable development goals (SDGs) by 2030.

These consultations with development partners gave both parties the opportunity to discuss progress, areas requiring improvement, and opportunities for greater collaboration between the UN system and their donors and partners.

Sanaka Samarasinha, UN Resident Coordinator to Fiji, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu, and Vanuatu, said “this is the first time our Cooperation Framework is being drafted in the Pacific following the very significant reforms the UN Secretary General and Member States embarked on a few years back.

“Two weeks ago, the UN Secretary General … reported that 95% of governments in countries where we have programmes, said UN Country Teams (UNCTs) are more integrated and collaborative. That’s up from 80% in 2019, and much higher than years prior to that.”

Echoing his remarks, UN Resident Coordinator to Cook Islands, Niue, Samoa, and Tokelau, Simona Marinescu, added that:

“The UN reform greatly benefitted from the significant voluntary contributions that development partners made through the Special Purpose Trust Fund, the Joint SDG Fund, the COVID-19 Multi-Partner Trust Fund and other vertical instruments that were established to support more integrated programming. Aligning development financing with the principles of the Funding Compact is a prerequisite for better use of resources in the Pacific, particularly at this time when reliance on ODA is the highest among the Pacific SIDS.”   

Jaap van Hierden, UN Resident Coordinator to Palau, Federated States of Micronesia, Republic of Marshall Islands, Nauru and Kiribati, added that, in order to achieve the SDGs in the Pacific, transformative change through strong partnerships is a necessity.

“We are confident that these consultations are the beginning of an ongoing and regular dialogue with and between all development partners and stakeholders, throughout the implementation of the Cooperation Framework, both at the regional and local levels.”

In total, for 2022, UN support to the three UN offices across the Pacific hovers around US$241m in the following areas:

• climate change
• disaster resilience and environmental protection
• basic services (health, education and water and sanitation hygiene (WASH)
• governance and community engagement
• gender equality
• economic empowerment, and
• human rights.

ENDS