Review of the technical cooperation activities of UNCTAD

1123rd

19 Sep 2014

 

The Trade and Development Board
 
1. Reaffirms the role of UNCTAD technical cooperation as a fundamental pillar of the organization and stresses the importance of coordination among the three pillars for better coherence and impact when providing technical assistance;

 

2. Requests the secretariat to ensure that technical cooperation activities are in line with the Accra Accord and the Doha Mandate and oriented towards meeting, in coordination with other international organizations, the challenges of the post 2015 development agenda;

 

3. Appreciates the quality of technical cooperation activities carried out by the UNCTAD secretariat in cooperation with beneficiaries, development partners and other international organizations and notes with appreciation that expenditures in 2013 increased as compared with previous years;

 

4. Takes note with appreciation of the report by the Secretary-General of UNCTAD on the review of the technical cooperation activities of UNCTAD and their financing;

 

5. Commends the continued commitment and the interest shown by developing countries in UNCTAD technical cooperation activities as manifested by their significant share of contributions to technical cooperation financing;

 

6. Takes note with concern of the decrease in the overall contribution, as indicated in chapter I of TD/B/WP/262, to UNCTAD trust funds, calls on developed countries and other development partners in a position to do so to make multi-year contributions to UNCTAD technical cooperation, in order to increase predictability in the planning and implementation of the relevant technical assistance programmes, and underlines the relevance of non-earmarked trust funds;

 

7. Expresses concern that the LDC Trust Fund is very low on resources and that there were no contributions to the Fund in 2013, and calls on developed countries and other development partners in a position to do so to continue to contribute to the LDC Trust Fund and urges the secretariat to continue to ensure that priority is assigned to LDCs;

 

8. Reaffirms the importance of results-based management in the delivery of technical assistance, takes note of secretariat efforts to implement results-based management in line with United Nations guidelines and encourages the secretariat to further pursue these efforts in the context of systematic implementation of the results-based management framework adopted in 2013;

 

9. Encourages all donors to use, with the active support of the secretariat, the compilation of requests prepared by it as a relevant tool to allocate contributions according to the needs and priorities of beneficiary countries with a view to ensuring transparency and ownership in UNCTAD technical cooperation;

 

10. Appreciates the secretariat's activities in support of the United Nations system-wide reform and UNCTAD's lead role in the United Nations Inter-Agency Cluster on Trade and Productive Capacity and the effective contribution of the Inter Agency Cluster to the implementation of the Aid for Trade initiative;

 

11. Encourages the role of UNCTAD in the Inter-Agency Cluster in accessing multi-year, multi-donors trust funds, bearing in mind the ongoing work on the post-2015 development agenda;

 

12. Calls on the regional coordinators and interested member States to continue informal consultations to agree on a set of common goals and principles for the fundraising strategy, to increase contributions and enhance sustainability and predictability in financing cooperation in order to respond to the needs of developing countries as the ultimate goal of the strategy, to be presented for consideration at the next session of the Working Party in December 2014.