TheJourneyVolume1 - Book - Page 115
Regional El Niño Response Strategy as a guide for UNDP
offices on how to address the crisis, and how to build a
longer-term approach to the climate crisis in Africa. It is
with this rich background of working in crisis, resilience,
and development environments, that I came with when I
was appointed UNDP Resident Representative.
My main motivation for going for the Resident Representative role was to substantively contribute to the achievement of SDGs in a country-specific context. I sought to use
UNDP as a powerful instrument to positively influence a
paradigm shift and bring about changes at the country level
to address the connected issues of poverty, inequality, and
exclusion while enhancing productive capacities to reduce
risks and sustain social and natural capital.
DEVELOPMENT POLICIES POST COVID-19
As a Resident Representative in one of the world’s Least
Developed Countries which is now facing many challenges
exacerbated by the pandemic, my main concern is to help
and support the country to bounce back to its pre-COVID
development trajectory. We all know that economies and
societies will continue to face substantial risks of major
shocks even once COVID-19 recedes. Hence, our role as
UNDP will be to support governments and countries to
be resilient enough to absorb these shocks and develop
policies that strengthen societies’ ability to face them.
Most importantly, we need to countries rebuild buffers.
The whole concept of “Risk-Informed Development”
theorized by UNDP needs to be put into practice now.
Climate action failure, extreme weather, biodiversity loss,
natural disasters, human-made environmental disasters,
and water crises are all potential sources of shocks. Other
risks such as debt, unemployment, cyber-security, IT
failures, and terrorist attacks also remain.
Hence, our approach to development must explore ways
of supporting governments to proactively strengthen their
resilience to future risks. Unfortunately, the pandemic
has clearly shown that development agencies have not
always cultured Resilience. COVID-19 has brought to the
fore fundamental weaknesses of development agencies’
operating models, approaches, and use of instruments.
Our approach to future of development must also aim to
create credible governance systems to implement policies
that strengthen societies’ resilience, harness digitalization,
safeguard citizens, build and maintain public trust, and
support the healthy functioning of democratic systems,
which are key to societies’ capacity to absorb shocks.
Development without resilience is a ruin to the economy
and prosperity. And as the saying goes: “If it’s not risk-informed, it’s not sustainable”.
The only way to achieve development is ensuring equity
and sustainability, as rightly put by our Administrator. n
U N I T E D N AT I O N S D E V E L O P M E N T P R O G R A M M E
WE ARE AGENTS OF CHANGE
With the UNDS Reform, Resident Representatives are
the most instrumental agents of change within the UN
System. We are uniquely positioned to better enable
countries to implement the transformative sustainable development agenda. Throughout my two and half
years as RR in Togo, I have dedicated my full energy and
commitment to supporting this agenda and a lot has been
achieved by UNDP in this period with the Government.
In Togo, UNDP fully plays its integrator role and serves
as an operational support platform for other UN agencies
(UNFPA, UNREC, RCO, etc.), and other partners and
Governments. UNDP recently implemented the biggest
Government cost-sharing program for community development (PUDC) - for more than US$50million. This
integrator role is of increasing importance in pursuing
recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic.
In the context of COVID Recovery, the Togolese
government has launched a new National Road map
(2020-2025), and UNDP is fully supporting many
priorities including those related to local governance,
the rule of law, capacity development, core governance
functions and state-building, as well as private sector
engagement, investment promotion, digitalization, and
youth employment.
The onset of COVID-19 has sadly wiped-out years of
progress and pushed millions of people globally, into
extreme poverty. The pandemic catapulted Africa into
its first recession in 25 years, erasing more than five
years of progress in fighting poverty in many countries,
including Togo.
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