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ETHIOPIA

BACKGROUND TO THE RETREAT

The Ethiopia UNSIA retreat was organized after a series of activities were undertaken by the Government, the UN country team and Donors that helped to identify UNSIA implementation issues to be addressed during the retreat. The Government, which had already demonstrated its leadership through ownership of policy formulation, its experience in the preparation of the Road Sector Investment Programmes (SIPs), its effectiveness in multilateral and bilateral donors coordination, has shown an early commitment to UNSIA, so far as it could enhance the same type of collaborative approach (road SIP) for education, health, water and governance. The UN country team, under the leadership of the Resident Coordinators, given their own commitment to implement UNSIA in support to the Government's objectives, embarked on intense consultations and dialogue with the Government and among themselves that lead to some preliminary results.

On the Government side, support for UNSIA was strengthened, and the decision was made that the education and health SIPs would be prepared and presented within the collaborative approach of UNSIA. On the UN system side, agencies accepted to develop a strategy for cooperation outlining proposals for implementation of Government priority SIPs, within the framework of UNSIA and they agreed to organize a retreat.

The Consultative Group organized in Ethiopia, in December 1996, strengthened the dialogue between Ethiopia and its partners, who approved the programmes presented, including the education and health SIPs which had benefitted from the collaborative approach of UNSIA during their formulation. While there was an agreement by donors for common implementation arrangements, some other issues were raised concerning SIP's approaches. The outcome of the Consultative Group also led the UN country team to decide to strengthening collaborative work in support of the Government in the implementation of the SIPs, especially in the area of capacity building. UN Head of Agencies agreed to form three working groups to review capacity strengthening issues and to make concrete proposals before the retreat. These subgroups covered three sectors: educations d(led by UNESCO), health (led by WHO) and food security (led by FAO).

The status of main activities at the moment of the Ethiopia retreat can be summarized as follows:

• Government ownership and leadership of its policy and programme, and full support for UNSIA including formal endorsement.
• Intense dialogue and consultations have already taken place between the UN system, the Government and among members of the UN team.
• Education and Health SIPs have already been formulated within UNSIA framework and approved by Donors during the Consultation Group meeting.
• Issues related to UN support for the implementation of the SIPs and areas of needed UN support were identified and agreed to by the Government. The UN system has done some ground work on these issues in preparation for the retreat (e.g. capacity building).

THE OBJECTIVES

The objectives of the Ethiopia retreat were to:

• Deepen dialogue between the UN system and the Government on issues related to UNSIA operationalization in support of Government is development effort;
• Reach agreement on how each agency would contribute towards the operationalization of UNSIA;
• Look at linkages between the various UN agency programmes and agree on areas of collaboration;
• Undertake further analysis of the UN system's role in capacity building;
• Reach agreement on options regarding arrangements on how to work with the Government;
• Reach better understanding of the linkage between various initiatives;
• Agree with the Government on how the UN system should support better the implementation of educations and health SIPs within the framework of UNSIA.

CONTENT AND APPROACH

During the retreat, discussions were centered on the following basic themes: analysis of SIPs specially educations, health, and food security. Other themes included gender, poverty reduction through support to the informal sector and employment generation; strategy for the operationalization of UNSIA; support to the Government in the implementation of SIPs, especially capacity building. Discussions of the themes during the retreat were based on reports prepared by the different working groups that were set up as mentioned earlier: education, health, food security, gender, poverty reduction. Other important documents included status of the Country Strategy Note (CSN), Common Country Assessment (CCA), Country Cooperation Framework (CCF). A separate session was held with Government representatives to deepen dialogue on the issues that have previously been identified or which were identified during the discussions.

PARTICIPATION

The retreat was attended by 14 UN agencies and organizations, and 4 representatives from the Ministry of Economic Development and Cooperation and Ministry of Foreign Affairs. There was no participation from NGOs/SCOs and bilateral donors. The Special Advisor at RBA/UNSIA secretariat also attended.

ISSUES DISCUSSED

The following issues were discussed among UN agencies and other organizations attending the retreat:

UN agencies cooperation and operatinalization of UNSIA

• Strengthening cooperation land coordination between UN agencies for the implementation of SIPs;
• Adjustment of existing UN programmes in the education sector to put it in line with the SIP and within the context of UNSIA.
• Harmonization of divers procedures in education and health to minimize transaction costs;
• Possibility for joint financing or resource pooling;
• UNSIA value added and additionality;
• Criteria for SIPs.

UN agencies cooperation and national development issues

• Need for national capacity building at different levels;
• Human resource development;
• Improvement on infrastructures for development;
• Girls' education;
• Gender and Development;
• Funding of Government recurrent expenditures.

Discussion between UN agencies and Government representatives

• Modality for improved coordination between the Government and UN agencies and between the different technical Ministries;
• Role of the CSN, and relation between the CSN and SIPs;
• Priority given by the Government to the area of employment, job creation and private sector development;
• Follow up to the World Summit on Social Development;
• Mechanisms for allocating external resources to other regions of the country;
• Role of NGOs in the implementation of UNSIA;
• The importance of addressing problems of youth.

OUTCOME OF THE RETREAT

The most important of the retreat was the deepening of dialogue between UN agencies and participating organizations and among the UN agencies and the Government, thus contributing to a better understanding of the issues discussed. This led to the following concrete recommendations and/or agreement which would enhance country level implementation of UNSIA.

The UN agencies and organizations reached agreement on the following:

• Strengthening coordination and collaboration;
• Pursue the objective of harmonization of procedures and modalities;
• Strengthening dialogue between UN agencies and Government for a better understanding of UNSIA implementation issues as it relates to support of the implementation of SIPs;
• Identification of the role that each agency will play in supporting the education SIP in the priority areas as shown in the matrix prepared before;
• Preparation of matrix showing the role of each agency in the implementation of health SIP;
• UNESCO and UNICEF to contribute to the formulation of the terms of reference for the upcoming World Bank mission to formulate education and health SIPs projects;
• The UN country team to participate in this exercise and to work closely with the World Bank to ensure coordination and synergy of activities;
• Each agency to designate an UNSIA focal point;
• UNSIA to be proposed as an item of the agenda of the ECA Council of Minister as well as the OAU Summit;
• Regular report on progress made in the implementation of UNSIA to be reviewed during the monthly coordination meeting;
• Discussions with Government representatives led to clarification and understanding of the following issues of mutual interest:
• The modality by UN coordination should be strengthened to have the maximum impact;
• Concern by UN agencies over the omission of employment, job creation and private sector development in the CCF;
• Relationship between the CSN and the SIPs;
• Relationship between the education/health SIPs and the follow up of the Social Summit;
• The integration of gender and environment as cross-cutting issues;
• Streamlining and guidelines that will allow NGOs to get fully involved;
• Relation between regional priorities and their integration into SIPs;
• Issues pertaining to the role of the youth and their social situation;
• Linkages between UN-NADAF and UNSIA;
• Examination by the Government of its internal programme management work to remove obstacles on budgeting, auditing and accounting system.

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