UNDP wants to coordinate with USAID on Global Fragility Act

The United Nations Development Programme wants to align its work with the U.S. foreign aid bill designed to head off conflicts before they ignite, in a bid to overhaul the entire international system to reduce the number of unstable countries, the director of the U.N. agency’s crisis bureau told Devex. The 2019 Global Fragility Act was passed with bipartisan support to refocus United States efforts in conflict settings toward prevention. The law reflects decades of failure by the U.S. in places such as Iraq and Afghanistan to stabilize fragile countries, and a desire to shift to a more coordinated, flexible approach. Asako Okai was in Washington last week to meet with officials from the U.S. Agency for International Development, State Department, and World Bank, two months after UNDP released its new framework for crisis and fragility contexts. That document calls for “a significant change of course” in the way the world is approaching such countries to break the cycle of protracted conflicts. “We need to think through how we can do better to ingrain the transformative approach to transition to more greener, equitable recovery.” --— Asako Okai, assistant secretary-general and director, UNDP crisis bureau She said it is important that the U.S. work to overhaul the way it works in unstable environments and is coordinated with other international institutions tackling the same issues, otherwise it won’t be as effective as they seek to move away from reactionary responses toward prevention. “It won’t work if the U.S. comes up with their own plan and then gives it to [others],” Okai said. “It needs to be co-created.” The U.S. government is currently in the end stages of developing specific strategies for the countries and regions where it will implement the GFA. The Global Fragility Strategy was released by the former Trump administration in December 2020, and earlier this year the Biden administration announced it would be piloting the new prevention approach in Haiti, Libya, Mozambique, and Papua New Guinea, along with the region of coastal West Africa, which includes Benin, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Guinea, and Togo. UNDP, the U.N.’s development agency that is present in 170 countries, isn’t providing formal consultations on the country and regional strategies, but Okai said conversations are ongoing in some countries with USAID. Some teams are already working together to produce proposals, she said. “There is a lot more to be done,” Okai said. “We found that some actors may not be acting together as yet.” Okai, who has been at the helm of the UNDP crisis bureau for four and a half years, said that the status of global conflict has worsened during her tenure, thanks to compounding crises including COVID-19, the war in Ukraine, and climate. Approximately 15% of the world’s total population — or 1.2 billion people — live in conflict-affected areas, according to the UNDP crisis offer. The UNDP crisis offer, which outlines the strategy, also calls for anticipation and prevention of crises, and investments in key development actions such as job creation even while the crisis remains ongoing. UNDP must focus on its development mandate, she said, stressing that the agency is not a humanitarian one that responds to immediate needs. The fact that they are present in so many countries at all times means they are familiar with local contexts, but responding sufficiently still remains very challenging, she said. “We as the lead development agency, UNDP, of the U.N. may need to think differently, configure differently to address this magnitude and scale of this complex situation,” Okai said. “We need to think through how we can do better to ingrain the transformative approach to transition to more greener, equitable recovery.” Any efforts to move toward a new approach will be challenging if “the right national counterpart” — country government — is not available to partner with international actors, she said. Haiti, which has been selected by the U.S. as a GFA country, is a “very bad example” of a place where the international community has invested millions of dollars but made no visible progress on preventing additional violence or stabilizing the country. “This is the result of the past legacy on certain approaches which didn’t work. To course correct will require a lot of energy, a lot of understanding, collaboration across the various actors,” Okai said. “If [the] U.S. is willing to make the difference, there should be sincere listening to be open for a new approach to come in. Whether we can do this is yet to be seen.” UNDP is also coordinating with the World Bank and its fragility, conflict, and violence portfolio. Fragility must be integrated into the approach of international financial institutions, Okai said, because the current architecture is not sufficient to meet the need. “The world may not be investing in the area which will prevent crisis but it’s only aggravating the situation, adding to the fragility and fueling the conflict,” Okai said. “If we are to invest more in prevention, we cannot avoid the work in institution building or the more longer term work that relates to governance and core government functions and strengthening capacity to manage crisis or financing with transparency.”