Review of technical cooperation activities of UNCTAD and their financing

The Trade and Development Board,

1. Takes note with appreciation of the report on technical cooperation activities of UNCTAD and their financing and its addenda (TD/B/47/2 and Add.1 and Add.2) as well as of the indicative plan of UNCTAD’s technical cooperation for 2001 (TD/B/47/8); regrets that some documents have not been translated in the last years and requests the secretariat to do its best to have them translated into the official languages in due time in future years; and notes with satisfaction that the delivery of UNCTAD’s technical cooperation reached its highest ever level in quantitative terms in 1999;
2. Expresses its appreciation to bilateral and multilateral donors for their contributions and appeals to them to continue to extend their contributions to ensure that UNCTAD in turn can respond to demand from all regions and deliver high-quality technical assistance; 3. Notes that the level of trust fund contributions fell in 1999, and that the bulk of these contributions come from a few donor countries, and calls upon all bilateral and multilateral donors to enhance their trust fund contributions on a more predictable and sustainable basis;
3. Notes with satisfaction that the level and share of technical cooperation expenditures for LDCs have increased, and requests bilateral and multilateral donors to continue to contribute to UNCTAD technical cooperation activities in favour of these countries commensurate with their needs and the priority assigned to them by member States in the UNCTAD X Plan of Action (TD/386);
4. Requests the secretariat, in consultation with member States, to intensify its efforts to ensure a better relative balance in the share of technical cooperation activities of the various regions, taking into account their respective needs;
5. Takes note of the efforts undertaken by the secretariat with a view to diversifying and enhancing its database of consultants and experts, and in particular improving its geographical coverage; urges the secretariat to intensify its efforts with a view to making maximum use of capacities from developing countries in the implementation of technical cooperation activities, including local and regional expertise; and encourages developing countries to provide names of experts to the secretariat;
6. Calls upon the secretariat to consider, in consultation with donors and beneficiaries, whenever possible and appropriate, clustering of activities and formulating umbrella projects to enhance internal coordination and coordination among donors, to create economies of scale, and to support cooperation among developing countries at the subregional, regional and interregional levels;
7. Encourages the secretariat to pursue and where appropriate extend the various consultations with interested member States regarding UNCTAD’s technical cooperation activities, bearing in mind that these consultations should be transparent and open-ended, and requests the secretariat to report annually on these consultations to the Working Party;
8. Expresses its appreciation to the secretariat for its efforts in the preparation of the indicative plan for UNCTAD’s technical cooperation activities for 2001, as contained in document TD/B/47/8-TD/B/WP/132; requests the secretariat to revise and reissue this document in light of the comments made by the Working Party at its thirty-sixth session; and also requests the secretariat to include, in the indicative plan of UNCTAD’s technical cooperation for 2002, information on the responses it received from donors to the indicative plan for the year 2001;
9. Notes with satisfaction the introduction of a computerized programme (PROMS+), and requests the secretariat to derive the maximum use from this programme, as an additional tool, for the purpose of enhancing internal coordination, strengthening central oversight and monitoring technical cooperation activities, inter alia for reporting purposes;
10. Requests the secretariat to standardize the presentation of project proposals and the submission of progress reports to donors and beneficiaries and to consistently include performance indicators, impact assessment and evaluation, and in addition welcomes information from beneficiary countries on the impact of technical cooperation services they receive from UNCTAD;
11. Requests the secretariat to include information in project documents on the relationship between the project and the secretariat’s research and policy analysis functions, with a view to strengthening the integration between the secretariat’s research and policy analysis functions and its technical cooperation activities.

917^th plenary meeting
20 October 2000