UNDP - Swaziland

The AWP (PDF attached) details UNDP’s contribution to the United Nations System support to national development priorities in line with the UN’s commitments of assistance to the country’s efforts to attain its development aspirations and meet globally agreed development targets including the Millennium Declaration, the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and other global development commitments.

UNDP’s broad mandate is capacity building for programmes that includes support to national poverty reduction efforts, strengthening democratic govern-ance and gender mainstreaming. This year the organization has committed almost E20 million towards these programmes.

Explaining UNDP’s programme of support, UNDP Resident Representative Mr. Musinga Bandora highlighted that in Poverty Reduction UNDP resources will support the implementation of the Poverty Reduction Strategy and Action Programme (PRSAP), in particular, initiatives for effective poverty planning, monitoring, evaluation and analysis. The programme recognizes HIV&AIDS as a major fuel of poverty in Swaziland. To that end, support has been committed to effective management and coordination of the epidemic in support of the Joint UN Programme of Support to HIV&AIDS (JUNPS) and the National Strategic Plan (NSP). An equally significant dimension is the cultivation of a culture of sustainable use of environmental resources. In that regard, as a follow up to the Copenhagen Summit, UNDP is committed to supporting the Government develop climate change adaptation strategies. The programme will also seek to support effective planning to ensure effective risk reduction strategies for disasters, effective early recovery plans. To this end, UNDP has also committed to support capacity strengthening for emergency preparedness and response system.

Under its Governance Programme, UNDP will support capacity building for enhanced and strengthened capacities of key national and local level institutions for improved governance. This programme aims at supporting the Government provide institutional support for the implementation of the Constitution and legal reforms. It also focuses on promoting transparency and accountability as well as decentralized government. To this end, UNDP will provide support to initiatives that strengthen the administration of justice, the management of development as well as support national dialogues to raise public awareness and enhance popular participation in national human development.

Under its Gender programme, UNDP will support Government in the implementation and monitoring of the UN Convention for the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW).  It also aims at building the capacity of key state and non-state actors in eliminating gender discrimination as well as violence against women, whilst mainstreaming HIV and AIDS.

The UNDP AWP links directly to the roadmap outlined by the United Nations Development Assistance Framework (UNDAF). UNDAF is the agreement signed between the Government of Swaziland and the United Nations in terms of which UN agencies commit to a Joint Programme of development support to Swaziland.

The UNDAF provides the broad development roadmap of priorities for UN support, enabling individual agencies in the country to focus on specific areas of the programme in terms of their development mandates. The current UNDAF signed in 2006 ends this year, and a new programme covering the period 2011-2015 has been completed and is awaiting signature. 

UNDP programmes are implemented through partners in government departments as well as in civil society and the private sector. In that respect, the AWP which also details the overall budget envelope for development this year and the respective partners for each activity, forms part of UNDP’s transparency and accountability framework.

ABOUT US: UNDP is the UN's global development network, an organization advocating for change and connecting countries to knowledge, experience and resources to help people build a better life. We are on the ground in 166 countries, working with them on their own solutions to global and national development challenges. As they develop

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Philile Simelane                                                                              Jabu Matsebula