The joint post of United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Resident Representative (RR) and United Nations (UN) Resident Coordinator (UN RC) has been officially separated into two distinct roles as part of sweeping global reforms of the United Nations development system.

The UNDP Resident Representative remains head of UNDP country offices in the field, while the UN Resident Coordinator is now an independent, impartial and empowered UN post established as the highest-ranking member of UN Country Teams at the national levels across the world.

The announcement was made at a Joint Announcement and Presentation to explain the global repositioning and transformation of the UN development system – at the Terra Nova Hotel on 11 June 2019, and also addressed by Minister of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade, Senator the Hon. Kamina Johnson-Smith. The reforms which entered into force on 1 January 2019, are mandated by UN General Assembly Resolution 72/79 of 31 May 2018 and endorsed by all 193 Member States including Jamaica.

In a separate video statement in the wake of the announcement, new UNDP Resident Representative for Jamaica, Denise Antonio reaffirmed UNDP’s support to Jamaica within the context of a new UNDP global strategy. “As part and parcel of the Next Generation UNDP, we will strengthen and refocus our efforts to be agile, innovative and efficient in delivering results that matter to the government and people of Jamaica. We will partner with the Government to enhance Productivity, Inclusion and Resilience, buttressed by Effective Governance,” she stated.

UN Resident Coordinator, Bruno Pouezat said the split of the UNDP RR and UN RC functions also means that there has been a separation of UNDP from the UN Resident Coordinator’s Office with the UN RCO now established as part of a global UN RC system and strengthened with five new core posts to support its new extensive functions: Strategic planning, development economics, partnerships and development finance, data and results management and reporting, and communications and advocacy.

He quoted UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres as explaining that “Sustainable Development has been placed at the heart of the UN’s work and the 2030 Agenda will serve as our blueprint”.

In other changes designed to reinforce global action on Agenda 2030, the UN has also established other mechanisms designed to strengthen SDG implementation support at the country level including, better support to UN Country Teams, (comprising the country-level leadership of the Agencies, Funds and Programmes in the field) to be more responsive to the 2030 Agenda in a coherent, integrated manner; a new, system-wide Strategic Document to guide global efforts on Agenda 2030 and a new programming framework at the country level emphasizing results reporting, focused on changed lives and progress for those furthest behind.

The Resident Coordinator also disclosed a major shift in reporting relationships: The UN Resident Coordinator is now part of the UN Secretariat, reporting directly to the Secretary General; a reinforced Management and Accountability Framework will hold the members of the UN Country Team, including the Resident Coordinator accountable for their contribution to the work of the team. In addition, UNCT and the UN RC report to the host government, in this case, the Government of Jamaica, on the implementation of the UN’s country programming framework. He provided one clarification: The UN RC leads the UN Country Team. Individual Agency heads remain accountable for their specific agency mandates, report to their own institutions regarding those mandates and retain their direct lines of communication with partner ministries.

“Taken together, this reform package is a bold step, easily the most ambitious in decades, but a needed answer to the call for the UN to meet the demands of the 2030 Agenda. The steps are in place to fix the machine. Now we need to work together to ensure its results touch the lives of those who matter most, leaving no one behind,” Mr Pouezat stated.