ZIMBABWE and the local United Nations office have agreed on setting up new strategic priorities in four major areas under a renewed five-year cooperation framework.
This was agreed on during a virtual consultative meeting between the chief secretary to the President and Cabinet, Misheck Sibanda and the UN resident coordinator, Maria Ribeiro.
According to a statement released by the UN after the meeting, the approved strategic priority areas will be from 2022-2026 and will run under the Zimbabwe-UN Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework.
The four strategic priority areas agreed on are; people-centered, equitable, human development and well-being; environmental protection, climate resilience and natural resource management; economic transformation, equitable and inclusive growth; and transformative, accountable, equitable and inclusive governance.
“The UN Cooperation Framework strategic priority areas are aligned to the National Development Strategy 1 (NDS1) 2021-2025 with corresponding outcomes to contribute to the transformative agenda of the government by refocusing the UN’s convening power and resource mobilisation capabilities towards sustainable development,” said Sibanda.
According to the statement, the UN Cooperation Framework is central to the success of the UN Development System reforms implemented three years ago, and will complement national priority areas, support Zimbabwe to recover from the Covid-19 pandemic, and contribute to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
“The UN country team with its partners will support Zimbabwe to ‘build forward better’ from the Covid-19 pandemic and address multidimensional causes of poverty, inequalities, and reduce vulnerabilities,” Ribeiro added.
The meeting also discussed how to strengthen partnerships between the government and the UN in the areas of development coordination, results reporting, resource leveraging, communications and advocacy as well as monitoring and evaluation for evidence- based decision making.
Zimbabwe has for decades benefited from different UN programmes and donations.