Republic of Congo

Chapter 3 UNDP CONTRIBUTION TO DEVELOPMENT RESULTS This chapter briefly reviews the relevance of The approved country programme was used as a UNDP activities with regard to major national framework to guide country-office activities. and international objectives, as well as the The programme was modified as necessary to organization’s capacity to adapt to changes in avoid duplication with non-UNDP initiatives context and the environment. It provides an and respond to funding opportunities or govern- overall analysis of operational efficiency, followed ment requests. by a more in-depth review of the four larger thematic areas in which UNDP is active. It is worth noting that crisis prevention and recovery activities were not presented under a 3.1 OVERALL ANALYSIS OF UNDP separate theme, but were instead—and surpris- 2004–2007 COUNTRY PROGRAMME ingly—included under the theme of poverty reduction. The evaluation team was told that the The UNDP country programme is structured government wished to clearly mark a passage around three major themes: good governance, from a post-conflict situation to a development poverty reduction, and environmental and natural- phase and preferred not to emphasize post- resource management. There are three additional conflict activities. Nevertheless, such activities cross-cutting themes, which include gender, continued to represent an important part of HIV/AIDS and NICT. The intent was to build UNDP work and a large share of its resources. strong synergies between UNDP programme For its own analysis, the evaluation team opted to components and components of programmes by present post-conflict activities separately. other members of the aid community. The initial budget estimates for the four-year In broad terms, the expected results were to: programme stood at $11,035,000. Of this, n Increase the capacity of the principal $2,535,000 (23 percent) was expected to come governance institutions, mainly through from UNDP regular resources. Actual expendi- support that addresses the needs of parlia- tures were more than double that amount, mentary institutions, local authorities and reaching $22,706,934, of which 20 percent was civil society; allocated from regular target for resource assign- ment from the core (TRAC) 1 resources. n Improve responsible reporting in public administration; 3.1.1 PROGRAMME RELEVANCE n Strengthen capacity for reducing poverty and UNDP interventions are decided upon in consul- achieving the MDGs on the part of the tation with the government and correspond to government and civil society; and national priorities as contained in major national n Strengthen the capacity of national and strategy and policy documents. Such documents sectoral authorities to plan and implement include the 2002 presidential platform of ‘New integrated approaches to environmental Hope’, the I-PRSP and, in some cases, national management and energy development that sectoral plans, such as the one for the environment. meet the needs of the poor. The programme also respects the priorities CHAPTER 3. UNDP CONTRIBUTION TO DEVELOPMENT RESULTS 15 defined by the New Partnership for Africa’s forced the country office to proceed with projects Development, as well as the global and regional rather than fully integrated programmes. The objectives of UNDP. necessity to divide the programme into projects corresponding to donor funding The consensus among respondents from the mechanisms has meant that the programmes government, the aid community and civil society became de facto umbrella programmes, each is that UNDP activities correspond to genuine covering a portfolio of projects. needs in the country. However, not all areas of The country office considered that the activity are recognized as being areas of Country Programme Document constituted excellence, where the comparative advantages of a framework that had to be responsive to UNDP are evident. In general, recognized areas changed circumstances and priorities during of expertise include UNDP interventions in the implementation. Thus, UNDP had to forego fields of governance, support to community some of the planned activities when funding groups, support to the preparation of national them proved difficult or when others had strategy documents and reports, and advocacy for previously engaged in the same field. This the environment, HIV/AIDS and gender issues. was the case for planned activities related to marine and coastal environments and for Some activities are seen as less successful and not follow-up on the UNDP-supported survey entirely relevant to the UNDP mandate and on corruption and fraud. On the other hand, expertise. In particular, this relates to highly certain activities were incorporated into the operational downstream projects for the rehabili- programme without being planned from the tation of infrastructure damaged by wars. For outset. These included, for example, the example, between 2002 and 2004 the rehabilitation rehabilitation of primary schools, undertaken of rural tracks was undertaken with deficient in consideration of the UNDP comparative technical backstopping by the United Nations advantages in community action and at the Office for Project Services. request of both the government and The World Bank. As noted in section 3.1, a structural anomaly in the country programme resulted from the UNDP successfully developed synergies decision to present conflict prevention and between different projects and activities. This recovery activities under the theme of poverty was particularly visible in the Pool reduction. The programme would have benefited Department, where a project for youth at risk from a clearer presentation that emphasized was used to support disarmament of former conflict prevention and recovery as an independent combatants and primary-school rehabilitation programme component. activities. Another example of synergies, this time at the upstream level, concerned UNDP 3.1.2 IMPLEMENTING LESSONS LEARNED support to parliamentary institutions. In this FROM THE PREVIOUS CYCLE case, the access and goodwill generated by The Country Programme document approved by the project allowed UNDP to conduct more the UNDP Executive Board in September 2003 effective advocacy and enlist the active support noted some lessons learned from past operations of parliament on a number of issues, including in the Republic of the Congo and made gender, HIV/AIDS and the environment. corresponding recommendations. 2. Strengthening and deepening partnerships 1. Adopting a programme approach enhancing with NGOs and associations. A second coherence and synergies. Although a pro- lesson called for further development of gramme approach was adopted in the planning relationships with NGOs and associations as phase, the realities of implementation have a proven mechanism of delivering assistance 16 CHAPTER 3. UNDP CONTRIBUTION TO DEVELOPMENT RESULTS in areas that remained insecure. As mentioned for procuring goods and services, the rate of in section 2.6, relations with NGOs and delivery increased to 78 percent in 2006 and associations have been less intense during the 87 percent in 2007. According to the 2007 current programming cycle than in the performance ranking by the UNDP Regional immediate post-war period, when national Bureau for Africa, the Republic of the Congo’s implementation capacity was particularly country office achieved second place among weak. In the new cycle, UNDP has correctly 44 countries, due in part to the improvement in placed more—and continues to gradually programme delivery. increase—emphasis on national execution. Programme funding demonstrates a heavy 3. Improving national ownership, ensuring reliance on non-core resources and, therefore, a sustainability of the outcomes of projects reliance on additional fundraising on the part of and actions, and fostering national the UNDP country office. Figure 1 indicates the capacity-building in the area of economic respective proportions of core and non-core management. Unfortunately, full national resources expended for each of the four years ownership and the resulting sustainability of under review.There are two notable observations. results remain the weak points of several First, UNDP has been increasingly successful in UNDP activities carried out under the mobilizing and using additional non-core programme. In many cases of both upstream resources, though often at the expense of other and downstream interventions, the planned outputs were delivered, yet anticipated results management duties. Second, UNDP core could not be achieved due to the national or resource allocations remained relatively low local authorities’ failure to devote the human during the programme period. This phenomenon and financial resources necessary to sustain is due to the methodology applied in allocating such results. This important issue is further TRAC resources to different country programmes. discussed, and concrete examples are provided in the thematic sections of this ADR. Two factors constitute the principal basis for allocations: the classification of a country on the 4. Deepening and broadening partnerships basis of the gross national income per capita and with the private sector, particularly in the the size of its population. Oil revenues place the context of fighting poverty and HIV/AIDS, Republic of the Congo in the lower middle-income as well as environmental and natural- group. It also does not fall into the category of resource preservation and management. As least developed countries, and

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