Statement of Louise Chamberlain at SDG's Coordination Seminar

January 21, 2020

Louise Chamberlain - UNDP RR (left to right), Ozonnia Ojielo - RC of UN in Kyrgyzstan, Ainura Usenbekova - Representative of the Office of the President, Avtandil Alybaev - Deputy Minister of Economics of the Kyrgyz Republic

21 January 2020, 09:00–09:30

Park Hotel, Bishkek

Statement by UNDP Resident Representative, Louise Chamberlain

Mr. Daniar Imanaliev, Head of the Policy of the Strategic Development, Economy and Finance Unit of the President’s Office of the Kyrgyz Republic,

Mr. Abduvakhap Nurbaev, MP of the Zhogorku Kenesh,

Mr. Alymbek Orozbekov, Head of the Economics and Investment Unit of the Government’s Office of the Kyrgyz Republic;

Mr. Ozonnia Ojieollo, UN Resident Coordinator;

Distinguished guests  

Good morning to you all. It is my pleasure to greet you on behalf of the UNDP in the Kyrgyz Republic in this workshop to share good practices and develop recommendations on the Institutional and Coordination Modalities for SDG Implementation. The 2030 Agenda Sustainable Development Goals is a plan of action for people, planet and prosperity for the world to eradicate poverty and achieve sustainable development. Today, in January 2020, we look ahead to a “Decade of Action” in which governments of the world will have to live up to their commitment to meet the SDGs by 2030. The clock is ticking, and with this one decade left it is time for those governments, who have not yet put in place effective mechanisms to realise the goals, to do so.

With this in mind, we greatly appreciate the initiative of the Secretariat of the Sustainable Development Council under the President’s Office under Mr. Imanaliev’s leadership to hold today’s dialogue. It is simply so, that with good organisation and strong mechanisms for collaboration, the government can realise a whole of government approach – where different offices can come together seamlessly around same issues and where investment and progress on SDGs is clear and visible within the government as well as to parliament and society at large. When we say “government” in this context, we don’t necessarily distinguish between the President’s office, the Prime Minister’s office, the line ministries, or state agencies (although leadership and accountability need to be established. The point is rather that these offices must be tied together through predictable, transparent and efficient internal working mechanisms in order to enhance the performance of the overall system.

The topic of today’s discussion is SDG coordination mechanisms. In the UN Secretary-General’s report on SDG progress from 2019 stated that Overall, it is important that the institution leading the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals has sufficient authority and powers to mobilize the entire government, including regional and local levels, and the entire society around the Goals. It is also critical that such coordination structures go beyond information exchange or superficial matching exercises. They must focus instead on developing and overseeing the implementation of comprehensive, integrated and coherent policies and the requisite results-based budgets. End quote.

In other words, where policies are overlapping and inconsistent, and where agencies are not collaborating to ensure coherence and efficiency in resources, these are hinders to achieve the SDGs. Introducing functions to strengthen policy coherence and to achieve integration will be catalytic, but not in itself sufficient. It is necessary to reinforce also monitoring of progress and to introduce accountability mechanisms.

The role of the parliament and in Kyrgyzstan’s case the Zhogorku Kenesh, is important not only for oversight but for feedback on direction and results, and I am glad we have several members with us this morning.

In support of support for designing effective institutional coordination mechanism for SDGs in Kyrgyzstan, UNDP has prepared a review of international best practice and conducted a participatory study of existing structures and functional areas applicable for Kyrgyzstan. These will be presented today to inform our workshop.

There are three main principles that must underpin the institutional and coordination modalities, as follows:

  1. The institutional arrangements for sustainable development must be adapted to the national context.
  2. They should take its starting point around functions such as advocacy, monitoring, and implementation of SDGs, where more than one office is involved, and collaboration and coordination are therefore necessary. Last week, you have identified five critical functions that will be discussed in today’s workshop.
  3. Thirdly, the handling of any kind of cross-cutting issue will require institutional collaboration, innovations and incentive systems to facilitate action and results across government levels.

Indeed, a lack of institutional clarify, roles and responsibilities will challenge the implementation.

I hope that this material and preparations have ignited internal discussions on the topic of institutional and coordination modalities and that this will stimulate good ideas during the working group discussion today.

I am pleased to introduce Ms. Susanne Milcher as a facilitator of today’s workshop. Ms Milcher has experience advising a number of countries on their development systems and she is here to work with you in helping to articulate a model that is truly relevant for Kyrgyzstan.

 I am also pleased to introduce Ms. Munkhtuul Batbaatar, whom we have brought from the Government of Mongolia to share its experience. Mongolia’s approach to institutional coordination is quite interesting and there will be a lot for Kyrgyzstan to learn from.

Let me also reassure that UNDP will continue to offer its technical support and experience to help develop institutional and coordination mechanisms for the Government of the Kyrgyz Republic, as part of a wider UN system to support SDG implementation.

In closing, I propose for the benefit of today’s workshop that we adopt an understanding of the term ‘coordination’ as the organization of different elements enabling them to work together effectively. While hierarchy and managerial efforts are also essential, today we want to focus on the institutional mechanisms for collaboration, that will produce an effective relationship.

        In closing, I wish you all a happy new 2020 and Decade of Action and every success in your today’s discussions on the future SDG coordination model in the country. 

Thank you for your kind attention. Rahmat! Spasibo!