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United Nations as a stakeholder

United Nations as a stakeholder in development partnerships.

(Source: The SDG Partnership Guidebook (page 29))

How to connect

It has traditionally been quite challenging to find the right entry point into the UN system. Having a UN insider who can assist with navigating the system and making connections can be extremely helpful.
The UN Resident Coordinator Office in country should be able to help make the connections into the right entities. Further, if there is a UN Global Compact local network, they may well also be able to make direct connections within the UN system.

Role and interests

To support the government in building and strengthening national capacities and delivering the national development agenda:

• Promoting sustainable development
• Delivering humanitarian aid Upholding human rights
• Upholding international law and maintaining peace and security

Resources brought to the table

• Legitimacy and independence;
• Extensive technical support, knowledge and capacity
• Political connections and influence
• Global network and access to knowledge and solutions from around the world
• Norms and standards-setting
• Convening power
• (In certain cases): funding

Organisation

The UN works through a range (10 to 20 in any one country) of different specialised agencies and programmes (e.g. Unicef, World Food Programme) to build capacity and deliver tangible results in support of the national development agenda*.
The work of the UN is coordinated by the UN Country Team (UNCT), led by the UN Resident Coordinator, the designated representative of the UN Secretary General in the country.
While each UN entity has its own set of activities, programmes and relationships with ministries, donors and other stakeholders, the UNCT aims to ensure the UN works as a team, formulating common positions on strategic issues, ensuring coherence in action and advocacy. In each country the UN Development Assistance Framework (UNDAF) or ‘cooperation framework’ aims to align with a country’s development plan and brings together all the UN activities into one overarching document. It is signed by the government and the UN agency heads.
In most countries, achieving this more cohesive approach is still a work in progress, although the UN is investing significantly in this area, including through efforts to ensure each UNCT has a partnership specialist on staff.

Considerations

At country level, there are often significant overlaps in mandate and even competition across UN entities. This has in the past made it challenging to identify the best UN entity to engage with.
It is important to appreciate that the UN is limited in the partnerships it is able to engage in: not only must the partnership contribute to the country’s development plans, the UN has rules about the organisations, particularly companies, it can engage with. The UN system itself has in general very little unallocated funding or resources it can put towards new programmes and may need funding – either through donors or from other partners – in order to engage fully.

The United Nations and Information Integrity

This Information Ecosystem (xy) stakeholder is active in #isic99 - Activities of extraterritorial organizations and bodies¹.

The Global Principles for Information Integrity apply to the United Nations and its international civil servants.
By adhering to the Global Principles, the Organization sets a compelling example for responsible stewardship of information integrity within the global community.
Scaling up its work to strengthen the integrity of the information ecosystem will contribute to advancing the Organization’s mission of securing peace, fostering sustainable development and promoting and protecting human rights for all.

For this stakeholder, the UN Global Principles for Information Integrity - Next Steps gives these recommendations:

• #gpii99a - Scale up efforts (xy,j)
• #gpii99b - Support capacity-building initiatives (j)
• #gpii99c - Undertake advocacy(xy)
• #gpii99d - Increase dedicated capacity(i*)
• #gpii99e - Develop agile communications strategies(xy)
• #gpii99f - Provide multilingual resources(xy)
• #gpii99g - Support multi-stakeholder action plans(i)

Source : United Nations Global Principles For Information Integrity

Read more

• United Nations (the Actor Atlas) and its 5 principal organs
  • UN General Assembly
  • UN Security Council
  • UN Economic and Social Council
  • UN International Court of Justice
  • UN Secretariat
• Addis Ababa Action Agenda - #a4a2030 - #pi9
• United Nations Development System (UNDS) repositioning initiative
• Organisation lists for a number of UN specialised agencies the development indicators they guard.