Programme Planning

A/RES/74/251View PDF

Who adopted this document and its mandates?

A Resolution of the General Assembly, under agenda item 136 Programme planning, published in 2020.

What else is in this group?

48 documents · 1982–2025

Newer documents in this group exist (latest: 2025).

Year	Symbol	Title	Word length	Text similarity
2025	A/RES/80/233	Programme planning	1,188	–
2024	A/RES/79/247	Programme planning	1,137	–
2023	A/RES/78/244	Programme planning	1,072	–
2023	A/RES/77/254	Programme planning	1,237	–
2021	A/RES/76/236	Programme planning	1,527	–

This group bundles related documents that are not individually ordered.

Which reports were submitted under this mandate?

1 report · 2020

Year	Symbol	Title		Mandate resolution
2020	A/74/852	Shifting the management paradigm in the United Nations : budgetary procedures and practices report of the Secretary-General		A/RES/74/251

What subjects does this mandate have?

2 subjects

Programme Budgeting Programme Planning

What’s in this document?

36 operative paragraphs

Reaffirms the role of the Committee for Programme and Coordination as the main subsidiary organ of the General Assembly and the Economic and Social Council for planning, programming and coordination;

Also reaffirms the role of the Committee for Programme and Coordination in verifying that the programmes of activities of the Organization are implemented in line with the legislative mandates and that the full implementation of regulations and rules is ensured;

Re-emphasizes the role of the plenary and the Main Committees of the General Assembly in reviewing and taking action on the appropriate recommendations of the Committee for Programme and Coordination relevant to their work, in accordance with regulation 4.10 of the Regulations and Rules Governing Programme Planning, the Programme Aspects of the Budget, the Monitoring of Implementation and the Methods of Evaluation;1

Stresses that setting the priorities of the United Nations is the prerogative of the Member States, as reflected in legislative mandates;

Reiterates the need for Member States to participate fully in the budget preparation process, from its early stages and throughout the process;

Recalls its resolution 72/266 A, in which it approved the change from a biennial to an annual budget period on a trial basis, beginning with the programme budget for 2020;

Requests the Secretary-General to present a report as early as practicable, for the consideration of the General Assembly at its seventy-fourth session, on the impact of the changes to the budgetary cycle on the established budgetary procedures and practices as they pertain to the agreed sequential nature of the review processes of the proposed programme budget, and in this regard to present possible options to ensure the preservation of this sequence, including the possibility of the Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions preparing its conclusions and recommendations on the basis of a programme plan approved by the General Assembly in 2021;

Recalls paragraph 13 of its resolution 72/266 A, and reaffirms that no changes to the budget methodology, established budgetary procedures and practices or the financial regulations may be implemented without prior review and approval by the General Assembly in accordance with established budgetary procedures;

Requests the Secretary-General to clearly identify those provisions and rules that are proposed to be formally suspended or no longer applied during the trial period;

Expresses its support for the efforts of the Secretariat to better engage and support programme managers with the aim of making the Organization more effective, and welcomes the commitment and ongoing efforts of the Secretariat to improve the programmatic aspects of the programme budget;

Calls upon the Secretary-General to ensure that objectives, results and performance measures that are put forward for consideration are strategic, measurable, achievable, realistic and time-bound;

Requests the Secretary-General to ensure that the Regulations and Rules Governing Programme Planning, the Programme Aspects of the Budget, the Monitoring of Implementation and the Methods of Evaluation approved by the General Assembly in its resolutions 70/8 and 72/9 are fully respected, with the exception of regulations and rules that have been directly impacted by the decisions taken by the Assembly in its resolution 72/266 A;

Notes the repeated reference “in the context of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the purposes stipulated in Article 1 of the Charter are embodied by the Sustainable Development Goals” across the programmes, underscores the primacy of the Charter of the United Nations, and reaffirms that the Sustainable Development Goals and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development⁶ are guided by the purposes and principles of the Charter;

⁶Resolution 70/1.

Requests the Secretary-General to ensure that results and, where possible, performance measures actually reflect achievements in the implementation of the programmes of the Organization and not those of individual Member States;

Also requests the Secretary-General, while still considering further areas of improvement, to apply the following guidelines when preparing the next proposed programme plan and programme performance documents for the remainder of the approved trial period, namely, for 2021 and 2022:

Adhering to a programme plan that contains the required level of detail and information, in particular keeping the objectives, results and corresponding performance measures at the subprogramme level, in line with the results-based budgeting framework;

Including a detailed list of deliverables in the proposed programme budget and ensuring that resources are justified in terms of the requirements to implement deliverables as contributions to the planned results;

Including clear, comprehensive explanations of the approved methodologies to be applied in the context of the programme budget proposals to be submitted in respect of the 2021 and 2022 budget periods, with reference to the applicable provisions of relevant General Assembly resolutions, including resolutions 47/212 A of 23 December 1992 and 72/266 A;

Enhancing the link between the preceding programme plans and the proposed future plans, with a view to ensuring consistency and continuity;

Incorporating more general information on programmes and subprogrammes by showing not only examples of actual and planned results, but also an overview of activities and general strategy that encompasses a comprehensive overall account of the actual and planned results;

Presenting performance information on a comprehensive set of results, which would allow for enhanced oversight, transparency and accountability in the implementation of all activities in the programme plan as approved by the General Assembly;

Providing, in the context of performance measures, at least three prior years of actual performance information to facilitate a better understanding and assessment of progress made at the programme and subprogramme levels;

Including a strategy at both the programme and subprogramme levels;

Incorporating the list of legislative mandates into the published official document and not into the supplementary document provided informally;

Replacing the proposed section on alignment with the Sustainable Development Goals with concrete information regarding contributions to the implementation of the Goals by relevant programmes and subprogrammes in accordance with their specific related intergovernmental mandates;

Using simplified and identifiable numbering to improve the readability and referencing of the proposed programme plan;

Reducing the use of accompanying photographs in the foreword to each proposed programme plan;

Ensuring that the use of anecdotal narratives in subprogrammes is only to provide examples of actual and planned results as referenced in (e) above;

Ensuring that the terms and expressions referenced in the proposed programme plan have been intergovernmentally agreed;

Approves, on an exceptional basis and without creating a precedent, for programmes 5, 8, 10, 12, 13, 16, 17, 19, 22, 27 and 28 of the proposed programme budget for 2020, the programme narrative that is composed solely of the “Mandates and background”, “Recent developments”, “Strategy and external factors for 2020” and “Evaluation activities” sections at the programme level and by objective at the subprogramme level;

Also approves, on an exceptional basis and without creating a precedent, for programmes 1, 2, 3, 4, 7, 9, 11, 14, 15, 18, 20, 21, 23, 24, 25 and 26 of the proposed programme budget for 2020, a programme narrative that is composed solely of the list of mandates at the programme level and the objectives approved by the General Assembly in its resolution 71/6 and the deliverables for 2020 at the subprogramme level;

Further approves the programme plan for programme 6, Legal affairs, of the proposed programme budget for 2020, as contained in the report of the Secretary-General;⁷

⁷A/74/6 (Sect. 8) and A/74/6 (Sect. 8)/Corr.1.

Approves, on an exceptional basis and without creating a precedent, in the case of the programmes mentioned in paragraph 17 above, where new mandates imply changes to the objectives at the subprogramme level as approved in their agreed formulation under its resolution 71/6, the relevant objectives as updated in the proposed programme budget for 2020;

Requests the Secretary-General to ensure that the programme plan covers all activities, both substantive and servicing, including those to be financed partially or fully from extrabudgetary and other assessed resources;

Endorses the conclusions and recommendations of the Committee for Programme and Coordination on evaluation⁸ contained in its report on the work of its fifty-ninth session, and requests the Secretary-General to ensure the timely implementation of the recommendations;

⁸Official Records of the General Assembly, Seventy-fourth Session, Supplement No. 16 (A/74/16), chap. II, sect. B.

Also endorses the conclusions and recommendations of the Committee for Programme and Coordination on the annual overview report of the United Nations System Chief Executives Board for Coordination for 2018,⁹ contained in its report on the work of its fifty-ninth session, and requests the Secretary-General to ensure the timely implementation of the recommendations.

⁹Ibid., chap. III, sect. A.

52nd (resumed) plenary meeting 27 December 2019

Who adopted this document and its mandates?

What else is in this group?

Which reports were submitted under this mandate?

What subjects does this mandate have?

What’s in this document?

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