20.      Three premises have guided the UN system’s strategy to support implementation of the Millennium Declaration’s development objectives. First is the holistic nature of human centred development and the consequential linkages and interdependencies both among all three pillars of collective action addressed in the Declaration and among its development goals. For example, while the goal of reducing and ultimately eradicating extreme poverty should be understood as central, progress towards it depends heavily on progress towards all the Declaration’s other objectives. Consider how hunger is the single largest contributor to disease, weakening the immune system, reducing capacity to recover from infection and inhibiting achievement of the goals relating to health. Malnutrition has consequences for goals relating to different stages in the lifecycle: it limits school completion for children; reduces labour productivity and jeopardizes employment, and hence poverty reduction, among adults; and increases the risk of degenerative diseases in later life. At the same time, lack of progress in stemming the spread of HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis will jeopardize improvements in areas such as education, employment and health services.

21.      The second premise of the UN system’s strategy is that the achievement of the Declaration’s goals and targets requires sustained and, in most cases, enhanced economic growth. This is particularly so in countries facing the greatest development challenges. The UN system’s strategy has therefore placed a core emphasis on improving the conditions for growth in developing countries.

22.      This relates directly to a third basic premise: that the achievement of the Millennium Declaration’s development objectives requires the creation of a supportive, enabling international environment. A successful, pro-development and timely conclusion of the Doha Trade Round and the provision of more aid and debt relief have so far fallen short of the Monterrey vision. The UN system stands united in its commitment to realize that vision.

23.      As the Millennium Project Report has pointed out, more aid will need to be provided in forms that can flexibly meet the incremental costs to developing countries of meeting the MDGs, thereby promoting sound governance through longer-term commitments and enabling financing for the recurring costs. In order to ensure debt sustainability, a larger proportion of the additional aid should take the form of grants. At the same time, considerable scope exists for increasing the effectiveness of aid: by improving the alignment of aid with national development strategies and priorities, and by aligning donor policies and practices with those of the recipient countries.⁽¹⁰⁾

24.      From these premises, the UN system’s strategy for advancing the Millennium Declaration’s development objectives has proceeded along four components:

• Analysis: defining and assessing the policy dimensions of achieving the Millennium Development Goals, based on a consensus among partners for the reforms, investments, financing options and strategies for “scaling up.”
  
• Campaigning and advocacy: collaboration with a wide range of partners, extending well beyond the UN family, to foster a self-sustaining movement, with strong national, regional and international roots.
  
• Operations: goal-driven assistance to address directly the key constraints to progress, guided by the mandates, comparative advantages and resources of the UN system at the country level.
  
• Monitoring: tracking and reviewing progress towards the MDGs.

25.      The Millennium Project has sought to analyze and identify the most promising strategies for meeting the MDGs. Drawing on expertise from a wide array of research institutions, and with the support of many UN system organizations, the Project has put forward practical ways to guide ongoing national and international poverty reduction efforts, including key operational priorities, organizational means of implementation and financing structures.

26.      The Millennium Campaign has, in turn, served as the main platform for the UN system’s advocacy strategy in support of the Declaration’s implementation. The Campaign has mobilized and reinforced political support for the Declaration by working with parliamentary networks, local authorities, the media, faith-based organizations, youth organizations, the business sector, NGOs and other entities outside the UN system. The campaign and advocacy efforts have been building broad-based coalitions to promote the MDGs and to work with industrialized countries on raising support for increased aid, debt relief and expanded access to markets, technology and investments.

27.      At the operational level, UN organizations have focused on mainstreaming the MDGs into their programmes and activities. The country-owned and country-driven Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs) and the UN Common Country Assessments (CCA) and UN Development Assistance Frameworks (UNDAF) are all being geared to help maximize the coherence and effectiveness of the system’s support for country-level implementation of the Millennium Declaration.

28.     The Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers provide an important link among national public actions, donor support and development outcomes towards meeting the MDGs. They are prepared by governments through a participatory process engaging civil society and involving the World Bank, the IMF and other development partners. As the framework for domestic policies and programmes to reach the MDGs in a given country, the PRSP serves as the basis for concessional lending by the World Bank and the IMF. When formulated before a PRSP, Common Country Assessments provide useful analytical inputs for preparing the national poverty reduction strategy, which itself can then contribute to the UN Development Assistance Framework.

29.     The UNDAF represents the collective contribution of UN organizations to addressing identified development challenges at the country level. As a common strategic framework for UN operational activities, UNDAF provides both: an integrated response to national priorities and needs; and the legal basis for detailing the modalities and content of UN work in supporting developing countries. The UNDAF results-matrix identifies areas for joint programming and shows how the concrete results of the programmes and projects of each organization will contribute to national development goals. Led by the Resident Coordinator, the UN Country Teams assist the incorporation of the MDGs in national poverty reduction strategies, including through the PRSP process. Inter-agency reflection is now underway on how to enhance the integration of non-resident UN organizations into this process, and, more generally, on how to ensure that development outcomes at the country level benefit from all capacities available within the system, operational and analytical.

30.     To complement these efforts, “Theme Groups” provide country-level fora for sharing information on key cross-sectoral areas, such as gender equality, human rights, HIV/AIDS, food security and rural development. These groups help to advance a common vision to shape the UNDAF. They facilitate the efforts of UN Country Teams to promote complementarities, particularly when it comes to furthering the key objectives of country ownership and national capacity. In addition to representatives of UN organizations, members of these groups include governments, donors and civil society. In the specific case of HIV/AIDS, the overall coordinating work of the UN Theme Group steers support for implementation of National Aids Strategies, being provided from within fully-integrated UN Country Team Implementation Support Plans.

31.     At the regional level, the five UN regional commissions have contributed significantly to raising awareness; conducted research and policy analysis; and promoted policy dialogues and exchanges of national experiences through their intergovernmental fora. Their regional reports—prepared in cooperation with the UN Secretariat, the specialized agencies and other regional partners—have evidenced both the trends and heterogeneity within regions; analyzed the underlying causes influencing sub-regional divergences; identified good practices; and provided policy perspectives and recommendations for action.⁽¹¹⁾

32.     The regional commissions have also fostered and facilitated policy exchanges and knowledge-sharing on key issues that, while relevant to all countries, need to be addressed in ways that take into account the varying circumstances of different regions and countries, such as: relationships among poverty reduction, growth and equity; conditions for a sustained process of poverty reduction; links between economic policies and the social MDGs; the combination of broad-based human capital formation with social protection and specific antipoverty programmes; and policies for addressing inequalities.

33.     The regional coordination meetings organized by the Commissions, and called for by the Economic and Social Council, have facilitated harmonization of the UN system’s activities at the regional and sub-regional levels. The meetings provide a mechanism for coordinating the various activities of UN system organizations and strengthening the effectiveness of their technical assistance to help countries integrate the MDGs and other priority objectives into their policy frameworks.

34.     The annual reports of the Secretary-General to the General Assembly on the implementation of the Millennium Declaration stem from a broad system of monitoring and reporting to track global, regional and national progress towards the MDGs. These reports have provided an overview of progress in implementing the Declaration’s commitments and a comprehensive statistical analysis on progress towards the goals. They have been based on global and regional monitoring by an Inter-Agency and Expert Group on MDG Indicators, coordinated by UN-DESA; on country-level monitoring coordinated by UNDP; and on other inputs from many parts of the system. They have also been complemented by an array of detailed progress reports produced by individual organizations. The most wide-ranging of these is the World Bank and IMF’s annual “Global Monitoring Report,” which provides an integrated assessment of progress on policies and actions needed to achieve the MDGs and related conference outcomes.⁽¹²⁾ 

35.     This inter-agency effort has been accompanied by monitoring and reporting on individual MDGs and related internationally agreed goals undertaken by the UN organizations and agencies most directly concerned, under the guidance of their respective governing bodies and with the support of other parts of the UN system. As noted above, country-level reporting by UN Country Teams has focused increasingly on monitoring MDG implementation.

^11.  ECLAC released Meeting the Millennium Poverty Reduction Targets in Latin America and the Caribbeanin December 2002. ESCAP issued its regional MDG report entitled Promoting the Millennium Development Goals in Asia and the Pacific in May 2003. Similar reports have been published or are being published by ECA, ECE and ESCWA.

^12.  Global Monitoring Report 2005—Millennium Development Goals: From Consensus to Momentum and Global Monitoring Report 2004—Policies and Actions for Achieving the Millennium Development Goals and Related Outcomes, World Bank.