Fiona McCluney speech at the Joint SDG Fund Annual Stakeholders Meeting, June 16, 2022

Good morning, on behalf of UN Albania, it is an honor to be invited as one of the countries of focus in this panel. Particularly, because, as an essential part of the UN Development System reform, the Joint SDG Fund came at a critical time here.

In this short intervention, I’ll highlight three key ways the Fund has helped make UN Country Team work better and then share examples of results from two programmes funded in Albania.

Firstly, the SDG Fund has been an important opportunity for the RC to use her role in bringing agencies together under a wider and ambitious programme, especially drawing in the expertise of smaller specialist agencies.

We were able, as the UNCT, to actively work on the shift from “Funding to Financing.” And it really encouraged a stronger focus on vulnerable groups and Leaving No one Behind initiatives.

Also, because the Fund’s areas of focus aligned so well with Government of Albania priorities, UN support was seen as highly significant and was commended for the focus at the municipal level, for promoting integrated health and social protection approach.

Let me turn to the first example from Albania: Improving Municipal Social Protection Service Delivery.

Implemented jointly by seven UN agencies, the programme produced tangible improvements for people in Albania (Core work with institutions by UNDP, UNICEF, WHO, UN Women, was complemented through work from UNFPA, ILO and UNHCR focusing on their persons of concern)

The government designed and implemented integrated social services for the first time at the municipal level addressing the needs of hard-to-reach population groups and Leave No One Behind (LNOB)

In pilot local government units diversified social care services were offered of better quality, more coverage of vulnerable groups, and with improved outreach and accessibility in remote rural areas.

Over 10.500 vulnerable people benefited from access to quality integrated social services.   

Public spending for social protection programmes also increased and from 2019 to 2020

• The Central government’s budget for social care services increased by 2.1%
• And in Pilot municipalities social services budget increased between 17% - 60%

And the Government also introduced an indicator (from the SDG’s) into the national statistics system measuring the proportion of population covered by social protection floors.

The Second UN Joint Programme we are implementing is called Strategic Policy Options for SDG Financing.

The UN here is assisting the Government in developing feasible solutions and fiscal space to increase SDG-related financing.

• • Albania’s first Integrated National Financing Framework is under development,  seeking to increase the budget for social protection with a Leaving No one Behind lens.
  • Analysis of the government budget and SDG-related spending has been done with a (focus on children, education, health and social protection). Options are being explored to development further through SDG-tagging in future budget documents.
  • We are also supporting the Parliament of Albania, especially its Subcommittee on Sustainable Development through capacity building, technical support, and how to apply a SDG-lens to their scrutiny functions.

I will stop here as results achieved are many and time does not permit to mention them all.  I would like to close by saying that the joint SDG Fund is a very valuable demonstration of the reform of the UN developmental pillar. UNCT members coming together to create better value and quality of results within our Cooperation Framework. It is also bringing additional value to the specific work of Agencies.   We are disappointed not to have been selected as an applicant country for the Development Emergency Window, a FAO led team had highlighted a critical issue for poor farmers and the next planting season. But clearly the funds that were available have gone to countries with high priority needs

There is no doubt we have benefited from the support of the joint SDG Fund and hope to be able to make use of this funding mechanism again to catalyze our results.

Thank you!