Do your new year’s resolutions include taking joint programming online in 2016?? We in Mozambique are moving in this direction. Working together with a team at HQ and Tanzania country office, we are on our way to fulfilling an aspiration of ours– to have an online United Nations Development Assistance Framework (UNDAF).
While many of us in the UN see 2015 as a triumphant year for multilateralism, there are those who hold lingering doubts about the agreement on Agenda 2030, an ambitious set of goals that establishes milestones of growth & equality within the limits of the planet. Many say they are too ambitious – 169 commandments according to the Economist and A free for all according to the New York Times.
Buckminster Fuller was a polymath and one of the most well regarded futurists of the 20th century. Bucky, as he liked to be called, astutely encapsulated the aim of foresight in a single phrase: “We are called to be architects of the future, not its victims.”
Will the next big tsunami occur in the Arabian Sea? Will ethnic strife erupt in the Horn of Africa? In this complicated world, it can seem hopelessly unrealistic to predict, prevent or ameliorate crises and disasters. We hope that INFORM will begin to change this.
The first phase of the ECOSOC dialogue on the longer-term positioning of the UN development system captured Member State’s views on UN functions, funding, governance, organizational arrangements, capacity, impact, partnership and change-management.
What is big data and how can it benefit human development? A recent Big Data Bootcamp opened the floodgates on a deluge of data and asked the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) to think about how to use it in meaningful ways.
The new sustainable development agenda is transformative, rights-based and universal. Without a doubt, supporting countries to implement the new agenda requires a United Nations system that is “fit for purpose” and I see six steps we can take before 1 January 2016. We have a tremendous opportunity to re-position the UN system to maximize its unique comparative advantages in support of sustainable development.
