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  • 20:55 23 Nov 2008
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  • 15:55 23 Nov 2008
 

UN Funds Programmes & Specialised Agencies

UN Photo/Tim McKulka

Sudanese IDPs collect food ration supplied by WFP and UNICEF

The UN Funds and Programmes together with the Specialised Agencies are charged with leading the UN’s operational response to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Four Funds and Programmes have their headquarters in New York. These are the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the United Nations Fund for Population Activities (UNFPA) and the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM).  Each of these funds or programmes has a network of country offices that work with national governments to address countries development needs. 

UNDP, UNFPA, UNIFEM and UNICEF are governed by UN member states through two separate Executive Boards.  For 2008, the UK is a member of the UNICEF Executive Board and an observer of the UNDP/UNFPA Board. The UK Mission to the UN works closely with all four organisations and other UN member states to promote effective, efficient, and coherent development assistance and humanitarian aid.  

 
The UK is a major donor, directing both core and non-core funding contributions to the Funds and Programmes.  New figures published in 2008 by the Department for International Development show that the UK Government will be rapidly increasing aid, keeping its promises to fight global poverty.  The UK's Official Development Assistance (ODA) spending is set to exceed £9 billion by 2010, representing 0.56% of Gross National Income (GNI), a rise of more than £4 billion over the next three years.  In 2007, UK ODA was 0.36% of GNI, rising to 0.43% of GNI in 2008 and 0.48% of GNI in 2009, on track to meet our promises. By 2010, excluding debt relief, the UK will have spent cumulatively an additional £12.5 billion of new ODA. Over half of this will be spent in Africa meaning over £6 billion of new ODA.  A significant proportion of this funding is channelled through the UN’s Funds and Programmes to tackle global poverty, gender equality, maternal health, child mortality and other development priorities
 
To help achieve the MDGs the Funds and Programmes need to work together more coherently.  The UK government is committed to reforming the UN’s development system to ensure more effective and efficient programming results in peoples’ lives being changed for the better. 
 

Six ways DFID's aid is working to fight global poverty

  • More children are in primary school - 17 million more in Bangladesh, 6 million in Ethiopia and over 5 million in Afghanistan;
  • By the end of 2006, 2 million people in developing countries were receiving Antiretroviral Treatment for HIV, almost double the number in 2005;
  • Bringing clean water to over 2.5 million people in India, Pakistan and Iraq;
  • Saving 5 million lives by immunising against common diseases through the International Finance Facility for Immunisation;
  • Providing £4 million to strengthen and reform Sierra Leone's civil service as well as £8 million to support a joint DFID/WB/EC decentralisation programme to improve the capacity of local government; and
  • In 28 countries that have benefited from debt relief, spending on poverty reduction programmes, like health and education, were almost three times greater in 2007 than in 1999 ($5.9 billion to $16.5 billion).

Links:

Speech by International Development Secretary Douglas Alexander at Women Deliver conference on maternal health, 18 October 2007.
 
Statement by Sir John Sawers at the UNDP/UNFPA Executive Board, 21 January 2008.

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