The Overview of UN Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework (2020-2025) to Ethiopia.

The United Nations Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework (2020-2025) is the collective response of the UN System in Ethiopia to national development priorities and helps achieve the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

The framework, which seeks a total estimated budget of 7.1 billion USD (United State Dollars) mostly to be mobilized during the implementation period through the UN Agencies, guides the entire planning and implementation of all UN development interventions in Ethiopia for Sustainable Development. It is anchored in Ethiopia’s development priorities as outlined in the 10-Year Perspective Plan and the Home Grown Economic Reform agenda.

The UN development system in Ethiopia has identified four critical priorities structured around the “4Ps”. The critical priorities are People, Peace, Prosperity and Planet. These priorities intend to address the four big structural transformations of the country over the coming five years namely, demographic; governance; economic; and environmental Issus.

The four identified areas of change for Ethiopia to make progress on these transformations and progress towards the SDGs, includes the need to: improve human development and enhance the resilience of the people living in Ethiopia; strengthen social cohesion, peace and security and human rights; accelerate the economic transformation and create employment opportunities; and enhance the country’s resilience against natural disasters.

The Framework in Brief

The United Nations Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework (2020-2025) replaces the previous United Nations Development Assistance Framework for Ethiopia (2016-2020). The framework presents the key shared objectives of the United Nations system, the areas in which it intends to support the Government of Ethiopia and its people.

Ethiopia is undergoing political, economic and demographic transitions that are structural in nature. These transitions pose major challenges but also permit a leap forward in inclusion, shared prosperity, sustainability and peace and security. Therefore, this moment is a historic one. What happens over the next several years will profoundly alter the development trajectory of Ethiopia and its chances of achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Ethiopia is building on an impressive development record. There has been a high level of economic growth, sustained over a generation which has lifted 15 million people out of poverty and was accompanied by significant improvements in social indicators. Despite the progress made, however, the country is facing important development challenges: a slow pace of structural economic transformation; rapid population growth; high levels of multidimensional poverty; significant unemployment and underemployment; social unrest; gender inequalities and violence against women and children rooted in systemic factors; inadequate law enforcement; and growing environmental pressure exacerbated by the impactof climate change.

Ethiopia is transforming to meet its changing development aspirations and the demands of the future. The country embarked on a major reorientation of development policy embodied in the Home-Grown Economic Reform and the Ten-Year Perspective Development Plan (2020-2030).

These changes make it more likely that Ethiopia will be able to achieve the SDGs, especially if it can navigate successfully through a cluster of six factors tied closely to the structural transitions underway in the country:

• A successful – and peaceful – transition to democracy.
• Successful economic reforms that yield transformational results.
• Faster progress in ensuring gender equality and empowering women and girls.
• Coping structurally with climate change.
• Exiting a vicious cycle of recurring humanitarian crises.
• Achieving a step change in trans-boundary cooperation.

UN strategic, relevant and effective assistance to Ethiopia

The UN in Ethiopia has identified four inter connected outcomes that will guide its development cooperation over the next five years:

• All people in Ethiopia enjoy the rights and capabilities to realize their potential in equality and with dignity.
• All people in Ethiopia live in a cohesive, just, inclusive and democratic society.
• All people in Ethiopia benefit from an inclusive, resilient and sustainable economy.
• All people in Ethiopia live in a society resilient to environmental risks and adapted to climate change.

To help achieve these outcomes, the UN will rely on three guiding principles:

• Inclusion of those left behind,
• Resilience and
• Sustainability

It will be future-focused, addressing long-term trends rather than simply the here and now, emphasizing transformational rather than incremental change that deals with structural factors. The UN will aim for results at scale through efforts that are much more joined-up, with lower transaction costs, making full use of the system as a platform for strategic partnerships. A less process-heavy approach, focused on results, is designed to make the UN in Ethiopia more agile and flexible. All of these elements mark a major departure from the previous UNDAF.

The overall responsibility for the UNSDCF will lie with the Minister of Finance, on behalf of the Government of Ethiopia, and the UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator on behalf of the United Nations Country Team. A joint Policy and Oversight Board will be established, co-chaired by the Minister of Finance and the UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator to provide strategic guidance and over sight to implementation. UN agencies and entities will work through a coordination arrangement actively engaging heads of agencies/entities and other senior staff. This will include a Program Planning and Performance Group, issues groups organized around selected areas of system-wide action, an Operations Group and a Partnerships and Communications Group. These groups will be responsible for ensuring that the strategic intent of the UNSDCF is being followed up, performance is meeting expectations, actions are coordinated or undertaken jointly and any significant policy, programmatic or operational bottlenecks are identified and addressed swiftly.

The UNSDCF will be implemented through joint, multi-year work plans in a limited number of areas representing strategic, multidimensional issues that the UN will pursue collectively under the UNSDCF. Other actions will be implemented through the country or biennial programs of specific UN agencies, funds, programs and other entities. Progress made against commitments in the UNSDCF will be monitored jointly by the Government of Ethiopia and the United Nations on an annual basis, applying the principle of mutual accountability, and evaluated in the penultimate year of the planning cycle.

National Vision for Sustainable Development

The Government of Ethiopia is committed to the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. This commitment has been embedded in the Ten-Year Perspective Development Plan – Ethiopia 2030: The Path ways to Prosperity which outlines Ethiopia’s ambition to become a beacon of prosperity by the deadline of the SDGs.

The Plan outlines five key people-centered objectives:

• Physical, human and institutional capital for income generation and asset accumulation.
• Equitable access to education, health and other services for improved utilization of potentials and asset creation.
• Unconditional access to the basic necessities of life: food, shelter, clean water, basic health and education.
• Economic, social and political participation without discrimination, including ethnic, religious, demographic and gender.
• Overall affirmative system built on consensus.

These objectives are to be achieved by relying on six strategic pillars:

1. Ensuring quality economic growth that is inclusive and leads to a reduction of poverty in all indicators;
2. Raising production and productivity;
3. Institutional transformation;
4. Ensuring the private sector’s leadership in the economy;
5. Ensuring equitable participation of women and children; and
6. Building a climate resilient economy.

Acknowledging the significant negative impact of COVID-19 on the development trajectory of

the country, the Plan outlines strategic mitigation measures aimed at returning the economy to the high growth that it witnessed prior to the crisis. The HGER (Home-Grown Economic Reform) will be the main instrument, together with an upcoming medium-term plan, for implementing the Ten-Year Perspective Development Plan. It calls for building a resilient and diversified middle income economy,

• Driven by the private sector;
• Eradicating extreme poverty and hunger;
• Building human capabilities;
• Building a modern policy and institutional framework; and
• Creating an efficient, resilient and well-functioning financial market.

Strategic Priorities & Intended Development Results

Consistent with its focus on critical transitions and taking into consideration its comparative advantage, the UNDS (United Nations Development System) will address the following priorities:

People

The UN in Ethiopia will assist the Government to tackle high levels of multidimensional poverty, inequalities, social exclusion and marginalization. To do this, the focus will be on support to youth, women and girls in particular.

Democracy, Justice & Peace

The UN will support the country to establish and develop the core institutions of democratic governance as well as entrench the norms, rules and practices that ensure participation in political and civic life, strengthen respect for human rights, improve prospects for equal protection under the rule of law and help create the peaceful conditions necessary for sustainable development.

Prosperity

The UN will work towards accelerating the transition to a more inclusive and diversified economy, utilizing a smart response to and recovery from the socio economic impact of COVID-19 to improve the pace, scale and quality of the change process. At the core of the UN’s focus will be the development of an enabling environment that can attract investments and boost entrepreneurship as well as enterprise/start-up formation and survival, to generate decent and productive jobs at scale for a young and growing population whilst improving social protection.

Environmental Protection & Climate Change

The UN will assist Ethiopia to progress rapidly towards a green economy that is resilient to growing risks, above all from the effects of climate change, enabling the country to adapt and transform at the same time, taking account of risks and opportunities.

Conclusion

The UNDS support to Ethiopia during the period 2020-2025 will be shaped by the requirements and demands of the country and sub regional contexts, national vision for sustainable development and status of progress towards the SDGs, as outlined above. It will also address the ambition of the African Union’s Agenda 2063 and the imperatives created by General Assembly resolution 72/2798, which calls for a more strategic, agile, adaptable, effective and efficient UNDS at the country and regional levels, able to address the ‘big issues’ of sustainable development. Moreover, the UNSDCF reflects lessons learned from the previous UNDAF.

Taking all of the above into consideration, the overarching vision of the UNSDCF is to help ensure that:

‘All people living in Ethiopia, especially those most vulnerable and left behind, have access to the quality services, knowledge and skills, decent employment opportunities and space for the exercise and enjoyment of their rights in a society that is peaceful, inclusive, sustainable and resilient.’