Development system reform

Repositioning the United Nations development system is one of the three parts of Secretary-General António Guterres's United to Reform agenda.

It consists of seven elements:

1. A new generation of UN country teams to meet the specific development priorities and needs of countries;
2. A reinvigorated Resident Coordinator system with stronger capacity, leadership, accountability and impartiality;
3. A coordinated, reprofiled and restructured regional approach to better support work on the ground;
4. Renewed spaces for Member States to guide system-wide actions and bring greater transparency and accountability for results;
5. A stronger UN institutional response and system-wide approach to partnerships for the 2030 Agenda.
6. Concrete steps to accelerate the system’s alignment to the 2030 Agenda, through a system-wide strategic document developed by the UN Development Group.
7. A Funding Compact to bring better quality, quantity and predictability of resources, increased accountability and transparency and enhanced capacities of the system to deliver on the 2030 Agenda.

Resident Coordinator System

Development Coordination Office

The Development Coordination Office (DCO), led by an Assistant Secretary-General, was established within the United Nations Secretariat to manage and oversee the resident coordinator system. Many of its functions were inherited from the former Development Operations Coordination Office of the United Nations Development Programme.

In addition to its presence at Headquarters in New York, DCO also includes five regional offices which provide day-to-day programmatic support, policy guidance and technical support for United Nations country teams.

Structure

• Global coordination
  • Office of the Assistant Secretary-General
  • RC System Business Management Branch
  • RC System Leadership Branch
  • Policy and Programming Branch
  • Country Business Strategies Section
  • Communications and Results Reporting Section

• Regional coordination
  • Regional Office Africa
  • Regional Office Arab States
  • Regional Office Europe and Central Asia
  • Regional Office Asia and Pacific
  • Regional Office Latin America and Caribbean

• Country coordination

Financing

The General Assembly, in its resolution 72/279, approved the funding of the resident coordinator system on an annual basis through:

1. A 1 per cent coordination levy on tightly earmarked third-party non-core contributions to United Nations development-related activities, to be paid at source;
2. Doubling the current United Nations Sustainable Development Group cost-sharing arrangement among United Nations development system entities; and
3. Voluntary, predictable, multi-year contributions to a dedicated trust fund to support the inception period.

The special purpose trust fund (SPTF) receives, consolidates, manages and accounts for all contributions and financial transactions of the resident coordinator system in a transparent and effective way. In 2019, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) included DCO on the Development Assistance Committee list of official development assistance (ODA)-eligible organizations as fully ODA-eligible.

Legislative history

Report(s)	Resolution(s)	Notes
A/72/124–E/2018/3	General Assembly resolution 72/236 of 20 December 2017	First report on the repositioning of the UN development system
A/72/684–E/2018/7	General Assembly resolution 72/279 of 31 May 2018	Second report on the repositioning of the UN development system; GA approved, inter alia, reinvigorated RC system with hybrid financing model
A/73/424 (SG) and A/73/579 (ACABQ)	General Assembly resolution 73/279 of 22 December 2018 (section XV)	Revised estimates relating to the resident coordinator system
A/74/73–E/2019/14	ECOSOC resolution 2019/15 of 8 July 2019	Implementation of resolution 71/243 on QCPR; stocktaking on UNDS reform
A/74/73–E/2019/14/Add.1	ECOSOC resolution 2019/15 of 8 July 2019	Funding compact
A/74/73–E/2019/14/Add.2	ECOSOC resolution 2019/15 of 8 July 2019	Overview of the funding of operational activities for development, focusing on 2017
A/74/73–E/2019/14/Add.3	ECOSOC resolution 2019/15 of 8 July 2019	Monitoring and reporting framework for resolutions 71/243 and 72/279
E/2019/62	ECOSOC resolution 2019/15 of 8 July 2019	Report on the Development Coordination Office and the resident coordinator system

See also

• United Nations reform
• Special Purpose Trust Fund website