Triennial Comprehensive Policy Review of Operational Activities for Development of the United Nations System

A/RES/59/250View PDF

Who adopted this document and its mandates?

A Resolution of the General Assembly, under agenda item 90b Triennial comprehensive policy review of operational activities for development of the United Nations System, published in 2005.

What other versions does this mandate have?

2 versions · 2005–2008

This is an older version — the most recent is A/RES/62/208

Year	Symbol	Title	Word length	Text similarity
2008	A/RES/62/208	Triennial comprehensive policy review of operational activities for development of the United Nations system	8,432	24%Compare
2005	A/RES/59/250	Triennial comprehensive policy review of operational activities for development of the United Nations System	6,355	–

Which reports were submitted under this mandate?

17 reports · 2005–2012

Year	Symbol	Title	Mandate resolution
2012	A/67/320	Quadrennial comprehensive policy review of operational activities for development of the United Nations system : recommendations report of the Secretary-General	A/RES/62/208
2012	A/67/93	Quadrennial comprehensive policy review of operational activities for development of the United Nations system report of the Secretary-General	A/RES/62/208
2011	E/2011/88	Simplification and harmonization of the United Nations development system report of the Secretary-General	A/RES/62/208
2009	E/2009/75	Human resources challenges within the United Nations development system at the country level report of the Secretary-General	A/RES/62/208
2009	A/64/75	Comprehensive statistical analysis of the financing of operational activities for development of the United Nations system for 2007 report of the Secretary-General	A/RES/59/250A/RES/62/208

What subjects does this mandate have?

16 subjects

Capacity Building Coordination Within UN System Cost Effectiveness Country Programmes Development Assistance Development Finance Economic Cooperation Among Developing Countries Gender Mainstreaming Operational Activities Programme Evaluation Programme Implementation Programme Planning Regional Cooperation Report Preparation Resident Coordinators Technical Cooperation Among Developing Countries

What’s in this document?

103 operative paragraphs

I.Introduction

Takes note with appreciation of the reports of the Secretary-General on the triennial comprehensive policy review of operational activities for development of the United Nations system;⁴

⁴A/59/84-E/2004/53, A/59/85-E/2004/68, A/59/386 and A/59/387.

Reaffirms that the fundamental characteristics of the operational activities for development of the United Nations system should be, inter alia, their universal, voluntary and grant nature, their neutrality and their multilateralism, as well as their ability to respond to the development needs of recipient countries in a flexible manner, and that the operational activities are carried out for the benefit of recipient countries, at the request of those countries and in accordance with their own policies and priorities for development;

Urges all Member States to pursue the full implementation of the internationally agreed development goals, including those contained in the United Nations Millennium Declaration,Error: Reference source not found and recognizes the positive contribution that these can make in providing direction to the operational activities for development of the United Nations system in accordance with national development efforts and priorities;

Recognizes that the strength of the United Nations operational system lies in its legitimacy, at the country level, as a neutral, objective and trusted partner for both recipient countries and donor countries;

Stresses that national Governments have the primary responsibility for their countries’ development, and recognizes the importance of national ownership of development programmes;

Emphasizes that recipient Governments have the primary responsibility for coordinating, on the basis of national strategies and priorities, all types of external assistance, including that provided by multilateral organizations, in order to integrate effectively such assistance into their development process;

Emphasizes also that the operational activities for development of the United Nations system should be valued and assessed on the basis of their impact on the recipient countries as contributions to enhance their capacity to pursue poverty eradication, sustained economic growth and sustainable development;

Calls upon the United Nations development system to highlight best practices, where these can inform national efforts to implement policies that promote sustained economic growth and sustainable development, inter alia, through the rule of law and the strengthening of effective, efficient, transparent and accountable systems for mobilizing resources;

Decides that, with the agreement of the host country, the United Nations development system should assist national Governments in creating an enabling environment in which the links between national Governments, the United Nations development system, civil society, national non-governmental organizations and the private sector that are involved in the development process are strengthened, with a view to seeking new and innovative solutions to development problems in accordance with national policies and priorities;

Stresses that the purpose of reform is to make the United Nations development system more efficient and effective in its support to developing countries to achieve the internationally agreed development goals, on the basis of their national development strategies, and stresses also that reform efforts should enhance organizational efficiency and achieve concrete development results;

Requests the organizations of the United Nations system to continue their efforts to respond to national development plans, policies and priorities, which constitute the only viable frame of reference for programming their operational activities at the country level, and to pursue full integration of the operational activities for development at the country-level with national planning and programming, under the leadership of national Governments, at all stages of the process, while ensuring the full involvement of all relevant stakeholders at the national level;

Welcomes the efforts of the Secretary-General, through the members of the United Nations Development Group and the United Nations System Chief Executives Board for Coordination, as appropriate, to enhance the coherence, effectiveness and efficiency of the United Nations development system at the country level;

Recognizes that strengthening the role and capacity of the United Nations development system to assist countries in achieving their development goals requires continuing improvement in its effectiveness, efficiency, coherence and impact, along with a significant increase in resources and an expansion of its resource base on a continuous, more predictable and assured basis;

II.Funding for operational activities for development of the United Nations system

Emphasizes that increasing financial contributions to the United Nations development system is key to achieving the MDGs,Error: Reference source not found and in this regard recognizes the mutually reinforcing links between increased effectiveness, efficiency and coherence of the United Nations development system, achieving concrete results in assisting developing countries to eradicate poverty and achieve sustained economic growth and sustainable development through operational activities for development and the overall resourcing of the United Nations development system;

Emphasizes also that funding of operational activities for development of the United Nations system should focus on long-term development challenges based on national development strategies;

Notes with concern that the United Nations development system has not benefited commensurately from recent increases in official development assistance, despite the additional tasks entrusted to the United Nations system in the implementation of and follow-up to internationally agreed goals;

Stresses that core resources, because of their untied nature, continue to be the bedrock of the operational activities for development of the United Nations system, and in this regard notes with appreciation that core contributions to United Nations funds and programmes have begun to increase again over the last three years;

Calls upon donor countries and other countries in a position to do so to substantially increase their contributions to the core/regular budgets of the United Nations development system, in particular its funds and programmes, and wherever possible, to contribute on a multi-year basis;

Urges developed countries that have not yet done so to make concrete efforts to reach the targets of 0.7 per cent of their gross national product as official development assistance to developing countries and 0.15 to 0.20 per cent of their gross national product to least developed countries, as reconfirmed at the Third United Nations Conference on Least Developed Countries, held in Brussels from 14 to 20 May 2001,⁵ encourages developing countries to build on progress achieved in ensuring that official development assistance is used effectively to help to achieve development goals and targets, acknowledges the efforts of all donors, commends those donors whose official development assistance contributions exceed, reach or are increasing towards the targets, and underlines the importance of undertaking to examine the means and time frames for achieving the targets and goals;⁶

⁵See A/CONF.191/13.

⁶See paragraph 42 of the Monterrey Consensus (see Report of the International Conference on Financing for Development, Monterrey, Mexico, 18–22 March 2002 (United Nations publication, Sales No. E.02.II.A.7), annex).

Notes the increase in non-core resources as a mechanism to supplement the means of operational activities for development of the United Nations system, which contributes to an increase in total resources, while recognizing that non-core resources are not a substitute for core resources and that unearmarked contributions are vital for the coherence and harmonization of the operational activities for development;

Invites the governing bodies of all organizations of the United Nations development system to address systematically the funding of their operational activities and to explore, within the context of their multi-year planning and related financial frameworks, where appropriate, additional sources of financial support and alternative funding modalities so as to secure, on a predictable, continuous and sustained basis, the critical mass of resources required to ensure adequate functioning and pursuit of long-term development objectives;

Requests the Secretary-General to improve his annual statistical compendium to the operational activities segment of the Economic and Social Council by adding a multi-year perspective, fully incorporating available information and statistics;

Requests the Economic and Social Council to undertake triennially, as of 2006, a comprehensive review of trends and perspectives in funding for development cooperation;

Requests the Secretary-General, in consultation with Member States, to explore various funding options for increasing financing for operational activities for development of the United Nations system and to examine ways to enhance the predictability, long-term stability, reliability and adequacy of funding for the operational activities for development, including through the identification of possible new funding sources, as a follow-up to his report,⁷ while preserving the advantages of the current funding modalities, and to submit a report to the General Assembly through the Economic and Social Council at its substantive session in 2005;

⁷A/59/387.

Recognizes the urgent and specific needs of low-income countries, in particular the least developed countries, and stresses the need to continue to assist those countries through the existing institutions and funding mechanisms of the United Nations development system;

III.Capacity-building

Recognizes that capacity development and ownership of national development strategies are essential for the achievement of the MDGs,2 and calls upon United Nations organizations to provide further support to the efforts of developing countries to establish and/or maintain effective national institutions and to support the implementation and, as necessary, the devising of national strategies for capacity-building;

Urges all organizations of the United Nations development system to intensify inter-agency sharing of information at the system-wide level on good practices and experiences gained, results achieved, benchmarks and indicators, monitoring and evaluation criteria concerning their capacity-building activities;

Encourages all organizations of the United Nations development system to include reporting on their capacity-building activities in their annual reports to their respective governing bodies;

Requests the United Nations System Chief Executives Board for Coordination to analyse the capacity development efforts of the United Nations development system and to make recommendations on measures necessary to enhance their effectiveness, including through the improvement of the assessment and measurement of results;

Calls upon United Nations organizations to further strengthen the capacity of developing countries to better utilize the various aid modalities, including system-wide approaches and budget support;

Also calls upon United Nations organizations to adopt measures that ensure sustainability in capacity-building activities, and reiterates that the United Nations development system should use, to the fullest extent possible, national execution and available national expertise and technologies as the norm in the implementation of operational activities;

Stresses that developing countries, in order to meet the internationally agreed development goals, including those contained in the Millennium Declaration, should have access to new and emerging technologies, including information and communication technologies, which requires technology transfer, technical cooperation and the building and nurturing of scientific and technological capacity to participate in the development and adaptation of these technologies to local conditions, and in this regard urges Member States and the United Nations system to ensure the promotion and transfer of new and emerging technologies to developing countries;

Encourages the United Nations development system to support the national development strategies and plans of countries with economies in transition that face continuing difficulties in economic and social development, specifically to assist them in addressing the challenges of achieving the internationally agreed development goals, including those contained in the Millennium Declaration;

IV.Transaction costs and efficiency

Invites the governing bodies of all organizations of the United Nations system actively involved in development cooperation activities and their respective management to adopt harmonization and simplification measures, with a view to achieving a significant reduction in the administrative and procedural burden on the organizations and their national partners that derives from the preparation and implementation of operational activities;

Notes the progress achieved in the area of simplification and harmonization as defined in section VI of resolution 56/201, with the assistance of the United Nations Development Group, and calls upon the funds, programmes and the specialized agencies of the United Nations system to continue to implement the simplification and harmonization agenda by taking further steps to enhance and ensure the sustainability of that process;

Requests the funds, programmes and specialized agencies of the United Nations system to examine ways to further simplify their rules and procedures and, in this context, to accord the issue of simplification and harmonization high priority and to take concrete steps in the following areas: rationalization of country presence through common premises and co-location of members of United Nations country teams; implementation of the joint office model; common shared support services, including security, information technology, telecommunications, travel, banking and administrative and financial procedures, including for procurement; harmonization of the principles of cost recovery policies, including that of full cost recovery; alignment of the regional technical support structures and regional bureaux at headquarters level, including their regional coverage; as well as further simplification and harmonization measures;

Requests the Secretary-General, in full consultation with all members of the United Nations Development Group, through the Executive Committee of the Development Group, to submit to the Economic and Social Council, at its substantive session in 2005, a programme of work for the full implementation of the above-mentioned actions, to be completed before the end of 2007, including benchmarks, responsibilities and provisions to phase out redundant rules and procedures, as well as a timetable to monitor the progress made towards meeting these targets;

Invites the executive boards and governing bodies of the funds, programmes and specialized agencies to assess regularly the progress achieved in the area of simplification and harmonization of rules and procedures;

Requests the funds and programmes to provide, in their annual reports to the Economic and Social Council, specific information on the progress achieved in implementing the above-mentioned agenda;

Requests the United Nations Development Group to consult regularly with the United Nations System Chief Executives Board for Coordination on all activities undertaken to implement the above;

V.Coherence, effectiveness and relevance of operational activities for development

A.Common country assessment/United Nations Development Assistance Framework

Requests the United Nations system to conduct the common country assessment and the United Nations Development Assistance Framework processes as efforts to improve the support for national development priorities and policies, and stresses that full governmental ownership, participation and leadership is required at all stages of those processes;

Welcomes the efforts made so far by the United Nations system in the context of the improved functioning of the resident coordinator system, including through the common country assessment and the Framework, in order to achieve greater country-level programmatic coherence within the system and to foster teamwork among the organizations of the system, in particular those represented at the country level;

Recognizes that, in spite of these efforts, participation of the funds, programmes and agencies of the United Nations development system in country-level operational activities for development and coordination mechanisms still differs in level, quality and intensity, and that for some organizations it is inadequate, and in this context calls upon the United Nations development system to improve its country-level coordination so as to optimize its support to national development efforts, at the request of national authorities;

Calls upon the United Nations system to draw from its accumulated experience in all pertinent economic, social and other domains and to facilitate the access of developing countries to the services available within the system on the basis of its comparative advantages and expertise;

Calls upon the United Nations development system to foster an inclusive approach in promoting inter-agency collaboration, both at the country and headquarters levels, and requests the United Nations System Chief Executives Board for Coordination, in collaboration with the United Nations Development Group, to take the necessary steps to secure a more participatory involvement of the United Nations development system in the country-level operations and their coordination mechanisms, including through promotion, decentralization, the delegation of authority and multi-year programming, which will facilitate their participation in country-level coordination mechanisms;

Stresses the importance of the common country assessment as the common analytical tool of the United Nations system at the country level, including the specialized agencies, the regional commissions and other United Nations agencies with no country representation or limited country-level presence, which should contribute their accumulated analytical and normative experience so as to enable the use of all capacities available within the United Nations system;

Notes the progress made by the United Nations operational system in developing and using the common country assessment, and stresses that the formulation of the assessment is meant to be short, light and flexible;

Underlines the complementarity of the common country assessment to other analytical processes, and urges all funds, programmes and agencies to avoid duplication by utilizing, to the maximum extent possible, the common country assessment as their own country-level analytical tool;

Reiterates that the ownership and full participation of national authorities in the preparation and development of the Framework are key to guaranteeing that it responds to the national development plans and poverty reduction strategies of the countries concerned, and requests the Secretary-General to develop the Framework and its results matrix where applicable, as the common programming tool for country-level contributions of the funds and programmes towards achieving the MDGs,2 to be fully endorsed and countersigned by the national authorities;

Notes the potential of the Framework and its results matrix as the collective, coherent and integrated programming and monitoring framework for the operations of the United Nations development system at the country level, bringing increased opportunities for joint initiatives, including joint programming, and urges the United Nations development system to fully utilize such opportunities in the interest of enhancing aid efficiency and aid effectiveness;

Requests the Secretary-General, through the Executive Committee of the United Nations Development Group, in consultation with the United Nations System Chief Executives Board for Coordination, to ensure that United Nations Development Group agencies with multi-year programmes as well as the entities of the Secretariat that carry out operational activities in pursuit of the MDGs,2 fully align their respective programming and monitoring with the Framework, as well as take further steps to harmonize their programming cycles and to synchronize them as far as possible with the national programming instruments, in particular the national poverty reduction strategies, including poverty reduction strategy papers, where they exist;

Invites the United Nations system and the Bretton Woods institutions to explore further ways to enhance cooperation, collaboration and coordination, including through the greater harmonization of strategic frameworks, instruments, modalities and partnership arrangements, in full accordance with the priorities of the recipient Governments, and in this regard emphasizes the importance of ensuring, under the leadership of national authorities, greater consistency between the strategic frameworks developed by the United Nations funds and programmes, agencies and the Bretton Woods institutions, while maintaining the institutional integrity and organizational mandates of each organization and the national poverty reduction strategies, including poverty reduction strategy papers, where they exist;

B.Resident coordinator system and United Nations country teams

Reaffirms that the resident coordinator system, within the framework of national ownership, has a key role to play in the effective and efficient functioning of the United Nations system at the country level, including in the formulation of the common country assessment and the United Nations Development Assistance Framework, and is a key instrument for the efficient and effective coordination of the operational activities for development of the United Nations system, and requests the United Nations system, including the funds and programmes, the specialized agencies and the Secretariat, to enhance support to the resident coordinator system;

Urges the United Nations system to provide further financial, technical and organizational support for the resident coordinator system, and requests the Secretary-General, in consultation with the members of the United Nations Development Group to ensure that resident coordinators have the necessary resources to fulfil their role effectively;

Welcomes the improvements in the selection process and training of the resident coordinators, and urges the members of the Executive Committee of the United Nations Development Group, in full consultation with the members of the Development Group, to develop a procedure for the common assessment of the performance of resident coordinators by all members of the United Nations country teams;

Notes that coordination activities, while beneficial, represent transaction costs that are borne by both recipient countries and the organizations of the United Nations system, and emphasizes the need for their continuous evaluation and for an analysis and assessment of costs compared with the total programme expenditures for operational activities for development in order to ensure maximum efficiency and feasibility;

Reaffirms that the utilization of advanced information and communication technologies by the United Nations system could contribute to enhanced information-sharing and knowledge management, resulting in more effective delivery of development cooperation by the United Nations system, and encourages United Nations organizations to intensify their efforts to expand the use of information and communication technologies and to further harmonize their information technology platforms;

Requests the Secretary-General, in full consultation with all agencies of the United Nations Development Group and the United Nations System Chief Executives Board for Coordination, as appropriate, to develop, by the end of 2005, a comprehensive accountability framework for resident coordinators to exercise oversight of the design and implementation of the Framework, in a fully participatory manner, in support and under the leadership of national Governments;

Underscores the fact that the resident coordinator system is owned by the United Nations development system as a whole and that its functioning should be participatory, collegial and accountable;

Also underscores the fact that the management of the resident coordinator system continues to be firmly anchored in the United Nations Development Programme, while recognizing that many resident coordinators, especially in countries with large country teams, complex coordination situations or in situations of complex emergencies, lack the capacity to address equally well all tasks inherent to their functions, and in this regard requests that in such cases the United Nations Development Programme appoint, within the existing programming arrangement, a country director to run its core activities, including fund-raising, so as to assure that resident coordinators are fully available for their tasks;

Requests that, when raising funds, resident coordinators concentrate on raising funds for the whole of the United Nations at the country level;

VI.Country-level capacity of the United Nations system

Reaffirms the principle, as contained in resolutions 44/211 and 47/199, that the country-level presence of the United Nations system should be tailored to meet the specific development needs of recipient countries, as required by their country programmes;

Emphasizes the need for the range and level of skills and expertise assembled by the United Nations system at the country level to be commensurate with that needed to deliver on the priorities specified in each country’s United Nations Development Assistance Framework, in line with the national development strategies and plans, including poverty reduction strategy papers, where they exist, and to correspond to the technical backstopping and capacity-building needs and requirements of the developing countries;

Stresses the principle that no core function of the Secretariat can be outsourced to operational bodies, in particular at the field level, without proper financial compensation;

Invites the governing bodies of the organizations of the United Nations development system to consider means to strengthen their country-level capacities, including through complementary measures at their headquarters;

VII.Evaluation of operational activities for development

Requests the Secretary-General to continue to assess the effectiveness of the operational activities for development of the United Nations system, including, in particular, by assessing the effective use of all capacities available to provide a comprehensive and flexible response to the demand of developing countries for development support, and to report on the results of this assessment in the context of the next triennial policy review at its sixty-second session;

Reaffirms that the effectiveness of operational activities should be assessed by their impact on the poverty eradication efforts, economic growth and sustainable development of recipient countries;

Underlines the fact that future assessments of the effectiveness of the operational activities for development of the United Nations system should make full use of the data and expertise available within the system and from national authorities in full collaboration with national stakeholders and United Nations entities;

Recognizes the need to optimize the linking of evaluation to performance in the achievement of development goals, and encourages the United Nations development system to strengthen its evaluation activities, with particular focus on development results, including through the effective use of the results matrix of the United Nations Development Assistance Framework, the systematic use of monitoring and evaluation approaches at the system-wide level and the promotion of collaborative approaches to the evaluation, including joint evaluations, and further encourages the United Nations Evaluation Group, under the aegis of the United Nations System Chief Executives Board for Coordination, to make further progress in system-wide collaboration on evaluation, in particular harmonization and simplification of methodologies, norms, standards and cycles of evaluation;

Strongly encourages country-level evaluations of the Framework at the end of the programming cycle, based on the results matrix of the Framework, with full participation and leadership of the recipient Government;

Recognizes that national Governments have primary responsibility for coordinating external assistance, including that from the United Nations system, and evaluating the impact of its contribution to national priorities;

Requests the United Nations development system to conduct evaluations of its operations at the country level, in close consultation with national Governments, and in this context stresses the need to assist Governments in the development of national evaluation capacities through, inter alia, better use of lessons learned from past activities at the country level;

Also requests the United Nations development system to consider, where appropriate, applying lessons learned in the course of monitoring and evaluation to programming processes;

Stresses the need for all organizations of the United Nations development system to implement their global, regional and country-level activities in accordance with their mandates and the priorities of the recipient countries, urges their governing bodies to ensure that the activities, responsibilities and operational strategies of each fund and programme are consistent with their mandates and the overall policy guidance set forth by the General Assembly and the Economic and Social Council and to report on these issues within the context of the annual reports submitted to the Council, and requests the Secretary-General to include an assessment of these issues in the report on the triennial comprehensive policy review prepared for the sixty-second session of the General Assembly;

Requests that the United Nations Development Programme conduct full consultation with the Member States prior to issuing global and regional flagship reports, in accordance with, inter alia, the principles contained in General Assembly resolution 57/264 of 20 December 2002;

VIII.Regional dimensions

Calls upon the organizations of the United Nations development system, its regional commissions and other regional and subregional entities, as appropriate and consistent with their mandates, to intensify their cooperation and adopt more collaborative approaches to support country-level development initiatives at the request of recipient countries, in particular through closer collaboration within the resident coordinator system and by improving mechanisms for access to the technical capacities of the United Nations system at the regional and subregional levels;

Invites the governing bodies of the organizations of the United Nations development system to give greater and more systematic consideration to the regional and subregional dimensions of development cooperation and to promote measures for more intensive inter-agency collaboration at the regional and subregional levels, facilitating inter-country exchanges of experience and promoting both intraregional and interregional cooperation, as appropriate;

Encourages development agencies of the United Nations system to seek to maximize the opportunity to address development challenges on a regional or subregional basis, where appropriate, recognizing the important contribution of regional cooperation to national and regional development;

IX.South-South cooperation and development of national capacities

Welcomes the growing importance of South-South cooperation and its adoption as a driver of development effectiveness within the multi-year funding framework of the United Nations Development Programme;

Urges organizations and bodies of the United Nations system to mainstream, in their programmes and through their country-level activities and country offices, modalities to support South-South cooperation that would promote identification and dissemination of best practices, promote indigenous knowledge, know-how and technology in the South and facilitate networking among experts and institutions in developing countries;

Invites Member States and the organizations of the United Nations development system to celebrate the United Nations Day for South-South Cooperation in a befitting and comprehensive manner every year;

Emphasizes the need to mobilize additional resources for enhancing South-South cooperation, including from both the United Nations system and donors, and through triangular cooperation;

Urges all Member States and the organizations of the United Nations development system to actively participate in the High-Level Committee on the Review of South-South Cooperation with a view to formulating and reviewing the strategies as well as sharing information and their experience;

Encourages, in this regard, United Nations funds and programmes, the specialized agencies as well as centres of excellence in the South to contribute to the periodic updating of the Web of Information for Development, the electronic databank operated by the Special Unit for South-South Cooperation of the United Nations Development Programme in coordination with Governments, allowing for the wide diffusion of and access to the information contained therein, including experiences, best practices and potential partners in South-South cooperation;

Highlights the fact that, in spite of progress achieved in this area, further efforts are required to better understand the approaches and potential of South-South cooperation to enhance development effectiveness, including through national capacity development, and in this context calls upon all the organizations of the system to further enhance their support for national capacity development in the context of South-South cooperation;

X.Gender

Calls upon all organizations of the United Nations system, within their organizational mandates, to mainstream a gender perspective and to pursue gender equality in their country programmes, planning instruments and sector-wide programmes and to articulate specific country-level goals and targets in this field in accordance with the national development strategies;

Urges all organizations of the system to collaborate with the resident coordinator system to provide gender specialist resources in support of gender mainstreaming in country-level activities in all sectors where they operate, working closely with relevant national counterparts in generating the gender disaggregated, quantitative and qualitative information required to produce better analysis of gender-related issues of development;

Requests all entities of the United Nations system to enhance the effectiveness of gender specialist resources, gender focal points and gender theme groups by establishing clear mandates, by ensuring adequate training, access to information and to adequate and stable resources, and by increasing the support and participation of senior staff;

Calls upon the United Nations development system to avail itself of the technical experience of the United Nations Development Fund for Women on gender issues;

Encourages the continuing efforts to achieve gender balance in appointments within the United Nations system at the headquarters and country levels in positions that affect operational activities, including resident coordinator appointments, with due regard to representation of women from developing countries and keeping in mind the principle of equitable geographic representation;

Requests the Secretary-General to ensure that the annual report on resident coordinators includes adequate and concise information on progress on the above;

XI.Transition from relief to development

Takes note of the ongoing work within the United Nations on the complex issue of transition from relief to development;

Recognizes that the United Nations development system has a vital role to play in situations of transition from relief to development;

Requests the organizations of the system to strengthen interdepartmental and inter-agency coordination to ensure an integrated, coherent and coordinated approach to assistance at the country level, which takes account of the complexity of challenges that countries in those circumstances face and the country-specific character of those challenges;

Recognizes, in this regard, the important role that the effective resident coordinator/humanitarian coordinator system can play in situations of transition from relief to development;

Stresses, in this regard, the need for such transitional activities to be undertaken under national ownership through the development of national capacities at all levels to manage the transition process;

Recognizes the benefits of sharing experience and expertise, and encourages the development of South-South cooperation modalities, including triangular cooperation modalities, to assist the transition from relief to development through, inter alia, the use of information technologies and knowledge management systems, as well as exchange of expertise to enable countries in that situation to benefit from the experience of other developing countries;

Urges the donor countries and other countries in a position to do so to consider more coordinated and flexible approaches to funding operational activities for development in situations of transition from relief to development, making use of multiple resource mobilization instruments, and stresses that contributions to humanitarian assistance should not be provided at the expense of development assistance and that sufficient resources for humanitarian assistance should be made available by the international community;

Urges United Nations agencies and the donor community, in coordination with the national authorities, to begin planning the transition to development and taking measures supportive of that transition, such as institutional and capacity-building, from the beginning of the relief phase;

XII.Follow-up

100

Reaffirms that the governing bodies of the funds, programmes and specialized agencies of the United Nations system should take appropriate actions for the full implementation of the present resolution, in line with paragraphs 91 and 92 of resolution 56/201;

101

Requests the Secretary-General, after consultation with the funds, programmes and specialized agencies of the United Nations system, to submit a report to the Economic and Social Council, at its substantive session of 2005, on an appropriate management process, containing clear guidelines, targets, benchmarks and time frames for the full implementation of the present resolution;

102

Invites the Economic and Social Council, during the operational activities segment of its substantive session of 2006, to examine the operational activities of the United Nations system in order to evaluate the implementation of the present resolution with a view to ensuring its full implementation;

103

Requests the Secretary-General to submit to the General Assembly at its sixty-second session, through the Economic and Social Council, a comprehensive analysis of the implementation of the present resolution in the context of the triennial policy review, inter alia, by making use of relevant documentation, and to make appropriate recommendations.