During 2012, the UNDP Evaluation Office conducted a series of evaluations of UNDP’s global and regional programmes. The present evaluation covered the Regional Programme for Arab States 2010-2013, implemented by the UNDP Regional Bureau for Arab States through its Regional Programme Division in New York.
The evaluation found that in spite of wide disparities in social and economic standards, the Arab States’ common development challenges and cultural heritage created a ‘space’ conducive to regional programming. The Regional Programme for Arab States has used this regional space to promote debate around key development issues that may be sensitive and controversial to address at country level, for instance, through the Arab Human Development Reports, which prompted much debate but reached an exceptionally wide audience and are now credited with foretelling the Arab uprisings of 2011. Support to the fight against corruption and efforts to address HIV/AIDS also exploited the same niche and proceeded from the same logic, the regional programme attempting in both cases to contextualize international norms in order to promote their implementation in the region.
The Arab uprisings created a peculiar context for the evaluation, preventing some travel and meetings but also, and more fundamentally, creating a ‘moving target’ in terms of relevance: interventions that were deemed irrelevant or unpalatable by regional governments before the uprisings came to be perceived as very relevant after 2011. This pertains in particular to democratic governance projects and the Arab Human Development Reports.
The evaluation concluded that the division of labour between the regional programme (managed from New York) and the advisory services to country offices (provided by the Regional Centre in Cairo) is currently too strict. While these lines of work probably need to retain a degree of autonomy, the lack of coordination and collaboration between the two regional entities generates confusion and neglects potential synergies.
To meet the challenges of the emerging era – particularly the rising expectations of the women, men and youth of the Arab world for employment, representation, freedom, dignity and security – UNDP will need to pull its strengths together, reach out to the Arab civil society, and translate the progressive language it uses in its reports and conferences into actual changes in people’s lives.
