July 2008
The UNDP Washington Bulletin provides a regular update of UNDP activities and events..
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The Global Food Crisis and the UNDP’s Role
The Secretary-General’s UN Task Force on the Global Food Security Crisis promotes a unified response and action plan for the global food-price challenge; UNDP’s role outlined.
UNDP Administrator Launches “Creating Value for All” on Capitol Hill
A new report on public-private partnerships in developing countries presents 50 case studies of successful cooperative ventures between business, government and civil society.
Bureau for Conflict Prevention and Recovery Head speaks out about “Sexual Violence Against Women and Girls: From Advocacy to Action”
Dr. Kathleen Cravero on Security Council Resolution 1820 (passed on June 19, 2008) and the advancement of women’s rights
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The Global Food Crisis and the UNDP’s Role
On 28 April, 2008, the United Nations Secretary-General established a Task Force on the Global Food Security Crisis under his chairmanship and composed of the heads of the United Nations specialized agencies, funds and programs, Bretton Woods institutions and relevant parts of the UN Secretariat. The primary aim of the Task Force is to promote a unified response to the global food price challenge, including by creating a plan of action and coordinating its implementation.
The UN system-wide fact sheet produced for the G8 is available here.
The UNDP section of the fact sheet is repeated below.
United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and the Global Food Crisis
For UNDP, the sense of urgency to meet the eight Millennium Development Goals by 2015--especially the first goal of eradicating global poverty and hunger--is heightened by the recent and dramatic spike in food prices and its attendant consequences, which threaten to undo many of the recent gains made on this front.
In its role as Coordinator of UN development activities on the ground, UNDP is working with governments, the World Bank and other UN specialized agencies -- the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and World Food Program, primarily -- to provide humanitarian and policy support to the countries hit hardest by rising food prices.
On the humanitarian front, through its network of country offices, UNDP is working with UN Country Teams in Cambodia, Liberia and other nations, to address immediate- and longer-term food-security needs, including by contributing to the design of targeted safety nets to respond to the crisis, such as food-for-work initiatives, school-feeding programs and cash transfers to vulnerable groups. In addition, in some countries like Burkina Faso, UNDP is providing additional funding for vulnerability assessments. UNDP is also raising funds for the short-term food security needs of highly vulnerable countries like Niger.
In Asia and the Pacific, UNDP’s Regional Center in Colombo, Sri Lanka, has teamed up with FAO and other partners to launch a year-long campaign to push a seven-point agenda to eliminate hunger in the region.
In Africa, UNDP and the World Bank have agreed to support countries to conduct rapid needs assessments and related activities to enable them to access the Bank’s Global Food Crisis Response Program (GFCRP). Several African countries are among the first 20 nations to have made their funding requests to the GFCRP.
On the policy front, UNDP is addressing the need for medium- to longer-term policy measures that tackle food security by helping governments prepare appropriate actions and strategies to expand agricultural production and productivity as part of national development processes, policies and programs.
UNDP is working to ensure that its response to the current food crisis is coherent, harmonized and builds on the experiences of its country and regional offices around the world. Instrumental to this effort are policy briefs and e-discussions on relevant network sites that UNDP hosts. UNDP is also currently crafting a diagnostic paper on the food crisis, which will have three main components:
- A stock-taking of the current situation to identifies issues contributing to the food crisis
- A regional analysis and collection of country case studies, which look at specific issues relating to the crisis across regions and highlight policy responses so far.
- A reference for policy design and action, providing UNDP Country Offices and Regional Centers with policy options and an assessment of what has worked at the global, regional and national levels.
This diagnostic paper will be the first step in a more intensive policy research agenda which is expected to boost UNDP’s ability to both provide sound policy advice and enable UN Resident Coordinators at country level to more effectively respond to issues of food and nutritional security.
The Secretary General’s High-level Task Force on Global Food Security Crisis website, including the final version of the Comprehensive Framework for Action, is here.
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UNDP Administrator Launches “Creating Value for All”
on Capitol Hill
On July 9, UNDP Administrator Kemal Derviş joined a panel of development leaders for the launch of the inaugural report of the Growing Inclusive Markets (GIM) initiative, Creating Value for All: Strategies for Doing Business with the Poor at the U.S. Capitol Building. Over 130 participants gathered to learn about the report and its recommendations for advancing private entrepreneurship while pursuing human development.
Creating Value for All offers strategies and tools for companies to expand beyond traditional business practices and bring in the world’s poor as partners in growth. Part of UNDP’s Growing Inclusive Markets initiative, the report draws on extensive case studies and demonstrates the effectiveness of more inclusive business models.
“This is not primarily about charity, but about business making profits and pursuing business interests that also benefit the poor,” said UNDP Administrator Kemal Derviş who hosted the panel discussion. “Sustainable business has to be profitable.” He noted that while it has taken a long time to agree that development and private entrepreneurship must go hand in hand, private direct investment has increased and now the private sector agenda, as illustrated by the work of the Growing Inclusive Markets initiative, is one of the pillars of UNDP’s human development agenda.
At the launch, Administrator Derviş was joined on the panel by two members of the House of Representatives’ Appropriations Committee—Nita Lowey (D-NY) and Jo Ann Emerson (R-MO), two leading development agency representatives—James Kunder, Acting Deputy Administrator of USAID, and Jean-Michel Severino, Director General of the Agence Française de Développement, as well as John Sullivan, Executive Director of the Center for International Private Enterprise, a nonprofit affiliate of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. This group was representative of the multi-stakeholder interests of the GIM initiative and its call for cooperation between businesses, governments and civil society organizations.
Panel members emphasized the report’s value for further discussion on the role of business and development, and its concrete business models, which present new ways of financing business projects. Solid macroeconomic policies, functioning courts and orderly legal systems were cited as fundamental to a thriving business environment. The panelists agreed that conflict is the greatest single obstacle to sustainable development.
Creating Value for All showcases 50 case studies by researchers in developing and developed countries. These studies demonstrate the successful pursuit of both revenues and social impact by local and international small- and medium-sized companies, as well as multinational corporations. The report highlights five strategies that private businesses have successfully used to overcome the most common obstacles to doing business with the poor:
• adapt products and services;
• invest in infrastructure or training to remove constraints;
• leverage the strengths of the poor to increase the labor and management pool and expand local knowledge;
• work with similarly-minded businesses, non-profit organizations or public service providers;
• engage in policy dialogue with governments.
The full report can be found here.
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Bureau for Conflict Prevention and Recovery Director
Kathleen Cravero speaks about
“Sexual Violence Against Women and Girls in Crisis:
From Advocacy to Action”
[TEXT] OR [AUDIO]
Security Council says sexual violence akin to war crimes
On July 17, the Washington Liaison Office co-hosted a luncheon discussion with the Women’s Foreign Policy Group featuring Dr. Kathleen Cravero, UN Assistant Secretary-General, UNDP Director of the Bureau for Crisis Prevention and Recovery (BCPR) and Chair of UN Action Against Sexual Violence in Conflict.
Cravero delivered an impassioned speech about the alarming increases in sexual violence against women and girls as a tool of war. Victims are often stigmatized causing many to refuse to talk about their rape, and the ripple effects of these attacks on the victim’s families, communities and nations reduce the chances for peace, she explained.
With over two decades of experience in international development, including first-hand knowledge on a range of development issues, Cravero’s leadership has consolidated the Bureau’s efforts to bridge crisis prevention and recovery with humanitarian and development work.
On June 19, the United Nations Security Council affirmed that rape and other forms of sexual violence can constitute war crimes, and called for measures to combat such attacks. Capping a day-long ministerial-level meeting on “women, peace and security”, the 15-member Council unanimously adopted Resolution 1820, which noted that “rape and other forms of sexual violence can constitute war crimes, crimes against humanity or a constitutive act with respect to genocide”. It also affirmed the Council’s intention, when establishing and renewing State-specific sanction regimes, to consider imposing “targeted and graduated” measures against warring factions who committed rape and other forms of violence against women and girls. Cravero said that Resolution 1820 represented “a major advance” for women’s and human rights, and added that sexual violence can no longer be portrayed as “an unfortunate byproduct of war.”
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told the council that he was committed to "zero tolerance" and "zero impunity" for sexual abuse by UN personnel and urged countries that provide troops to follow through with prosecution because the UN has no authority to try the perpetrators. He pledged to strengthen the world body's code of conduct and hold supervisors accountable for assaults committed by soldiers and staffers.
The resolution established UN procedures to monitor sexual violence in armed conflicts and called for the Secretary-General to report in one year on their implementation. It also urges the UN to impose sanctions on violators.
Full text of Resolution 1820 (2008) on women and peace and security
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UNDP is the UN's global development network, advocating for change and connecting countries to knowledge, experience and resources to help people build better lives. We are on the ground in 166 countries, working with them on their own solutions to global and national development challenges. As they develop local capacity, they draw on the people of UNDP and our wide range of partners.
For additional information on the above news, please contact communications specialist Kathleen Reilly at UNDP’s Washington Office at 202.331.9130 or Kathleen.reilly@undp.org.
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