Flavia Pansieri: Yemen receives a fraction of the development assistance as least developed countries at a similar level [Archives:2006/970/Reportage]
UNV: What is the current focus of UNDP activities and the U.N. system at large in Yemen?
Flavia Pansieri: Just two months ago, the U.N. system in Yemen completed formulating the Development Assistance Framework (UNDAF) where we identified four key areas of U.N. intervention. The first is governance, which remains essential to address shortcomings that impede the most desirable utilization of both national and external resources for the country's development.
A second area is focused on social services. At 151 on last year's Human Development Report, Yemen is a low human development country and needs to focus on issues such as education, basic health, sanitation, shelter and so on. We recognize that it won't be possible to promote better social services for all unless there's a sizeable economic growth process in the country; therefore, a third pillar is promoting sustainable and job-creating economic growth.
Finally, because of the extreme degree of gender discrimination in Yemen, we decided within the UNDAF to have a special focus on gender to ensure that it's mainstreamed into the UNDAF's other three pillars, while also pursuing a number of activities directly, such as fighting violence against women, gender budgeting, preventing early marriage and changing overall attitudes toward women, which will be undertaken as part of the UNDAF's fourth pillar.
UNV: Within the U.N. system and as part of U.N. reform are ongoing efforts to coordinate activities at the country level to implement the “One U.N.” notion. Is this taking shape in Yemen?
FP: We very much are working toward that goal. We were together in developing the UNDAF and we identified a number of areas where we want to work together. Most specifically, in the area of monitoring Yemen's development progress via a common system of collection, analysis and publication of indicators because we do think there's a lot of duplication that can be eliminated by working together in these areas.
UNFPA (the U.N. Populations Fund) is leading this effort, with support from the other agencies, in using DEVINFO methodology first spearheaded by UNICEF. So, as you see, it's truly a collective effort.
Another area of work is trying to identify the geographic areas of greater deprivation because we then can focus our efforts in the same areas so that we intervene in health, education, capacity building and agriculture to bring to bear our respective competencies for greater impact.
UNV: With Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) as the overall framework of the U.N. system, which goals in Yemen are priorities and which are advancing?
FP: All eight are important. We conducted an assessment a couple of years ago on the degree of progress, which concluded that, based on current trends and with the possible exception of universal primary education, all of the goals would be missed. Of course, this is a source of serious concern. There is a positive development trend in the country and there have been growth and improvement in various indicators, but not fast enough to meet the goals.
In order to ensure that we can progress more expeditiously in attaining the targets – hopefully reaching at least a large number of them by 2015 – it's also important to ensure greater engagement of the international community in Yemen because Yemen is an LDC (least developed country), but it receives a fraction of the ODA (Official Development Assistance) that similar level LDCs receive.
This also requires strengthening the compact between national authorities and international donors, as well as greater guarantees for these donors that the governance structure, oversight mechanisms, accountability and transparency measures are in place to ensure that both international ODA and internal/domestic resources are used in the best interests of the people.
So, we consider governance an important premise and a necessary area of work to ensure that there can be progress on all the goals. Without that, even increased financial availability to Yemen wouldn't be sufficient by itself to bring about the results that we hope for.
UNV: The UNV program is an active partner in Yemen in helping to achieve the MDGs. Please share with us an overview of the program there.
FP: We have a medium-sized UNV program in Yemen. Currently, 27 U.N. volunteers are serving and of these, 13 are international and 14 are national. They serve in at least three different agencies: one volunteer at the World Food Program (WFP) and the two agencies with the majority are UNDP and UNHCR.
UNHCR has a very large program of managing refugee camps with mainly African Horn refugees. Volunteers have proven indispensable to supporting UNHCR's protection, registration and administration activities.
In the case of UNDP, the mix of skills is broader, spanning from one volunteer in disaster preparedness to several engaged in providing support for the electoral process. Essentially national volunteers, they're working in field locations to support preparations for the upcoming September elections.
We also have U.N. volunteers who are part of the security system and a U.N. volunteer doctor, to whom we're all indebted for our own personal well-being and that of our families.
UNV: Looking at volunteerism beyond the UNV program, how is volunteerism viewed in Yemeni society and is support being provided to tap into this resource to support Yemen's development?
FP: We, UNV, the U.N., the international community, need to work much more with our partners in Arab nations to stress how much the concept of volunteerism that we support is something already intrinsically part of Arab culture and the Islamic religion.
The very principles a good Muslim applies in his or her dealings with those less privileged in society are an expression of volunteerism. This goes from financial contributions (such as zakat, a duty for all Muslims) to engaging in establishing charitable societies, NGOs and volunteer organizations whose essential goals generally tend to be toward promoting the well-being of fellow human beings, whether from the humanitarian side, social services, education, health and so on. There's a tremendous resource of such riches, even in a country as poor as Yemen.
I do think there's more that's needed from our side to branch out to these individuals or small collective efforts and provide them support – capacity building – to make sure they can optimize the impact they can have. However, there already is tremendously fertile ground on which we can rely to promote a greater spirit of volunteerism.
UNV: Any final thoughts or words you'd like to share?
FP: There's one thing I'd like to stress: The U.N. and every one of us who works for any U.N. entity, program or fund really should be motivated by an ethical imperative. This is what our oath of office says. We never should look upon our work as just a job; it should be a calling and ideally, in that respect, all of us involved in the U.N. should be viewed as volunteers in one way or another.
Nowhere is this more obvious than in the UNV program. There, the spirit of volunteerism and the response to this ethical imperative is accompanied not just by personal engagement and professional commitment, but also by a very clear and intentional dedication to goals that imply a certain cost to the individual, whether it's forsaken income or accepting to live under very difficult field conditions. From that point of view, all of us who aren't technically U.N. volunteers have a lot to learn from U.N. volunteers.
Source:UNDP website
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