UNITED NATION DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMME (UNDP)
About:
UNDP partners with people at all levels of society to help build nations that can withstand crisis, and drive and sustain the kind of growth that improves the quality of life for everyone. On the ground in 177 countries and territories, we offer global perspective and local insight to help empower lives and build resilient nations.World leaders have pledged to achieve the Millennium Development Goals, including the overarching goal of cutting poverty in half by 2015. UNDP's network links and coordinates global and national efforts to reach these Goals. Our focus is helping countries build and share solutions to the challenges of:
UNDP ADMINISTRATOR
HELEN CLARK
Helen Clark became the Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme in April 2009, and is the first woman to lead the organization. She is also the Chair of the United Nations Development Group, a committee consisting of the heads of all UN funds, programmes and departments working on development issues.
Prior to her appointment with UNDP, Helen Clark served for nine years as Prime Minister of New Zealand, serving three successive terms from 1999 - 2008. Throughout her tenure as Prime Minister, Helen Clark engaged widely in policy development and advocacy across the international, economic, social and cultural spheres.
Under her leadership, New Zealand achieved significant economic growth, low levels of unemployment, and high levels of investment in education and health, and in the well-being of families and older citizens. She and her government prioritized reconciliation and the settlement of historical grievances with New Zealand’s indigenous people and the development of an inclusive multicultural and multi-faith society.
Helen Clark advocated strongly for New Zealand’s comprehensive programme on sustainability and for tackling the problems of climate change. Her objectives have been to establish New Zealand as being among the world’s leading nations in dealing with these challenges. Helen Clark was also an active leader of her country’s foreign relations and policies, engaging in a wide range of international issues. As Prime Minister, Helen Clark was a member of the Council of Women World Leaders, an international network of current and former women presidents and prime ministers whose mission is to mobilize the highest-level women leaders globally for collective action on issues of critical importance to women and equitable development.
Helen Clark held ministerial responsibility during her nine years as Prime Minister for New Zealand’s intelligence agencies and for the portfolio of arts, culture and heritage. She has seen the promotion of this latter portfolio as important in expressing the unique identity of her nation in a positive way.
Helen Clark came to the role of Prime Minister after an extensive parliamentary and ministerial career. First elected to Parliament in 1981, Helen Clark was re-elected to her multicultural Auckland constituency for the tenth time in November 2008. Earlier in her career, she chaired Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee.
Between 1987 and 1990, she was a Minister responsible for first, the portfolios of Conservation and Housing, and then Health and Labour. She was Deputy Prime Minister between August 1989 and November 1990. From that date until December 1993 she served as Deputy Leader of the Opposition, and then as Leader of the Opposition until winning the election in November 1999.
Prior to entering the New Zealand Parliament, Helen Clark taught in the Political Studies Department of the University of Auckland. She graduated with a BA in 1971 and an MA with First Class Honours in 1974.
UNITED NATION DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMME CHINA
UNDP draws on world-wide experience to assist China both in developing solutions to its own ongoing development challenges, and in its south-south cooperation and engagement in global development.
UNDP's main focus areas in China are:
· Poverty Reduction
· Governance
· Energy, Environment and Climate Change
· South South cooperation and Global Issues
POVERTY REDUCTION
In China, over half the poor people live in ethnic minority areas, UNDP has been working with the Chinese government to develop ways that these communities can use to generate income while preserving and utilizing their unique culture as a resource for development. Through these training workshops that where they learn design branding, skills training, basic legal principles and business management workshops, these communities are now able to fight to preserve their traditional culture.
Macro Planning
Through government and community-based capacity building initiatives, UNDP is assisting key Chinese ministries in the formulation and implementation of policies which promote balanced, sustainable and inclusive development for all of its citizens.
In keeping with the government's vision for national development, these efforts have seen UNDP contribute to the cultivation of a Xiaokang Society, having raised the priority given to poverty reduction and having furthered land use, human resource and finance frameworks between 2006 and 2010.
It has also played an instrumental role in assisting in the formulation of the government's 12th Five-Year Plan, as well as its 10-Year Poverty Reduction outline.
While achieving the Millennium Development Goals by 2015 remains the organization's prevailing objective, helping China to realise its vision of a Xiaokang Society by 2020 is also seen as an important step on the road to a more equitable, sustainable and inclusive society in China.
In looking to the future, UNDP's main priorities centre on enabling policy research that assist in effective implementation of China's 12th Five-Year Plan's to reach out to vulnerable groups.
Meanwhile, in order to ensure that existing frameworks and strategies remain effective, UNDP remains committed to supporting initiatives at both the policy making level and on the ground.
Social Services
UNDP recognises the need to protect the interests of the disadvantaged, as an important component in human development, and is assisting the government with policy planning and capacity building that promotes equitable social inclusion and poverty reduction. As a result, various initiatives have already been implemented at different levels and in a wide number of locations throughout China.
UNDP has joined together with both public and private national development partners and now works alongside the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security (MOHRSS), as it too seeks to enhance employment services and vocational injury protection for migrant workers.
Other partners include the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), the Ministry of Civil Affairs and leading Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), who each work with UNDP to promote improved public services and legal aid. In all of this, UNDP emphasises participation by bringing local communities together to engage in inclusive and equitable decision making that benefits a wide range of community stakeholders.
UNDP is also conscious that in the future China will need to support its aging population. As birth rates continue to decrease and improved medical care, sanitation and nutrition continues to prolong life expectancies, figures published by the World Bank show that China’s aging population will peak in 2030, with 0.3 billion (22%) of its population over the age of 60. With elderly groups also highly susceptible to vulnerabilities, UNDP is helping China to reform its social service delivery system and enhance the quality of care and services provided.
Cultural Development For Ethnic Minorities
UNDP is working with national development partners in order to harness the rich and diverse cultural resources of China's distinctive ethnicities and use them as a catalyst for local progress.
UNDP also has been working with the China International Center for Economic and Technical Exchanges (CICETE), the State Ethnic Affairs Commission (SEAC), the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) Government and other UN agencies, to promote inclusive socio-economic development among ethnic minorities. Through programmes in Yunnan, Xinjiang, Guizhou, Qinghai, Inner Mongolia, and Tibet, cultural and natural resources have been highlighted as a catalyst for local progress. Efforts have focused on strengthening institutional support mechanisms and promoting community-based tourism,ethnic handicrafts, cultural resource preservation and management, among other community level livelihoods development initiatives.
Besides that, a rights-based participatory approach has been adopted, building capacity of the governments and communities to work together in decision-making processes. The establishment of community organizations has been supported to empower villagers to participate in local development and public affairs more effectively.
Progressive Livelihoods
UNDP is assisting China in improving the livelihoods of poor and vulnerable groups in remote and ecologically fragile areas; implementing innovative solutions on the ground.
In partnership with the Chinese government, Academics and private sector, an increasing number of pilot initiatives are focusing on a collective approach towards furthering innovative and sustainable sciences and technologies, developing value chains, promoting entrepreneurship and low carbon agricultural and forestry zones in rural areas. Part of a broader initiative to promote poverty reduction alongside green development, these efforts have led to the establishment of farmers' associations and economic cooperatives, for example, extending services to rural areas through a Technical Task Force (TTF), and creating a model combining environmental awareness and conservation within poverty reduction initiatives.
In particular, these programmes strive to increase local farmers' incomes, promote a market-oriented approach towards technological applications, raise awareness towards ecological and environmental restoration and promote alternative energy generation. Establishing an inclusive range of partnership networks at the national and local level the projects have seen UNDP engage with government organisations, Academics, NGOs, communities and the private sector.
GOVERNANCE
Through democratic governance ordinary people are able to participate in the decision making processes that affect their lives, exercise their legal rights, meet their obligations and mediate their differences. As part of its efforts to distribute the benefits of rapid social and economic development to all, China is focused on promoting a brand of democratic governance that requires government processes and institutions to become more participatory, transparent, accountable, effective and equitable in promoting the rule of law.
UNDP works extensively with government ministries and local communities to improve the effectiveness and scope of its democratic processes and institutions. As a fundamental step towards ensuring that China's human development gains lead to empowered lives, UNDP has supported programmes that focus on improving access to justice and the promotion of fairer allocation of resources. It has also sought to strengthen the rule of law by providing professionals and community organisations with the training and skills they need to oversee these processes.
ENERGY, ENVIRONMENT & CLIMATE CHANGE
Environmental hazards assert immense pressure on human activities. Though often difficult to measure in economic terms, there is no doubt that rapid development and an increasing demand for natural resources and energy have taken their toll on the natural environment in China over the past few decades. Sixteen of the world's 20 most polluted cities are now found in China, while seventy-five percent of its rivers are too polluted to be used for drinking, fishing or even irrigation. China is in danger of using its natural resources too quickly and is responsible for producing approximately 26% of global CO2 emissions. Coupled with the fact that air and water pollution continue to show no respect for national boundaries, the need to manage China's environmental and energy needs more effectively is of global significance.
UNDP seeks innovative solutions to China's vast environmental and energy requirements alongside a strong commitment towards ecological protection and conservation. As well as helping to create an enabling environment for biodiversity conservation through policy and legal reform, UNDP also supports advancements in access to knowledge, technologies and best practices at the national level and advocates for a more sustainable and inclusive form of development in some of China's most ecologically fragile communities.
SOUTH SOUTH COOPERATION & GLOBAL ISSUES
In November 2010, UNDP and China signed a Memorandum of Understanding for strengthened south-south cooperation. This update highlights some of the south-south work undertaken in 2011, the first full year following the signature of the MoU. The year saw China increasingly opening up to international collaboration and advice around its foreign aid. And it saw China looking to UNDP as one of its partners of choice in this area. As a result, in 2011 UNDP was able to: pilot trilateral cooperation with China and third countries; provide policy advice on global development issues; provide platforms for global south-south dialogue; and help China share its development experience with other developing countries. This is a dynamic and fast-growing area of the Coun-try Office‟s work. If UNDP can succeed in fostering greater, good quality mutual learning and un-derstanding between China, UNDP, other developing countries and the broader international de-velopment system, we can have a potentially highly significant impact on global development. http://www.undp.org.cn/%5Cdownloads%5Cpublications_2012%5CFinal%20Version_SSC%20Newsletter-website.pdf
