programme is heavily dependent on external support rather than government resources. With stronger government coordination and greater attention to regulating extractive industries (managing concessions in particular), the country may gain access to additional resources to address the challenges faced.
4.8 OVERALL EFFiciENcy By accepting the notion of a phased approach to post-conflict reconstruction and peacebuilding, UNDP has sought to establish a niche for itself in the immediate, post-conflict, humanitarian phase. In order to do so, it has created space in the management of donor funds and in the procurement of goods and services in support of projects that are of critical importance to peacebuilding. This entails the delivery of services that are often mission critical to the government and the international community. Competitiveness is based on the following factors: UNDP
fiduciary responsibility and the continued perception of its ability to accountably manage resources on behalf of the international community;
UNDP
rules, regulations and procedures, particularly in the procurement of goods and services and the quality and timeliness of its reporting;
The
ability of UNDP to deploy capacity to manage funds and their administration under difficult and often insecure conditions where other donors are unable to place personnel;
The
efficiency and timeliness of UNDP procurement practices;
The
quality and standards of UNDP procurement practices; and
The
overall role that UNDP plays in the coordination of development assistance, both within the context of the UN country team, but also more widely in the context of overall official development assistance to Liberia.
The efficiency and timeliness of UNDP procurement was repeatedly criticized in interviews
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by virtually all government counterparts. In the difficult institutional environment of postconflict Liberia, delivering on its fiduciary responsibility while meeting important deadlines poses a difficult challenge. The relative heaviness of UNDP procedures has often resulted in goods or services being delivered late—sometimes even beyond their date of usefulness. Some end-users interviewed even stated that UNDP procurement had become a bottleneck that hampered the achievement of results. The relative lack of monitoring and evaluation carried out by the country office between 2004 and 2011 and the availability of data (including the data sources originally set forth in UNDP project documents that were to be used as measurement of stated indicators) continue to hinder efforts to assess the efficiency of UNDP programming, particularly from a cost-benefit perspective. Despite the creation of a monitoring and evaluation unit in UNDP in 2009, much more needs to be done to establish meaningful baselines for indicators at the outcome and impact levels. In terms of cost efficiency, UNDP appears to have followed a pattern of squeezing the maximum out of very low budgets when national entities are involved. Allocations for activities such as workshops, local consultancies and publications have been sparse, even by local standards. This may not be the best policy, as it affected product quality and created a degree of ill will and friction. However, maximum use has been made of national experts and consultants—both in Monrovia and in the field—ensuring that products are in line with national institutions, legislation, culture and social practices, thereby raising efficiency and effectiveness of the programmes and their implementation. The operations of the UNDP Direct Execution Unit have been a source of controversy both within and outside the country office and have tended to dominate programme work. Chief technical advisers have complained of having relatively little say in programme management and the large volume of funding channelled through UNDP, combined with the urgency of requests
C H A P T E R 4 . U N D P C O N T R I b U T I O N S T O D E V E L O P M E N T R E S U LT S