Multi-Partner Trust Fund Office GATEWAY beta

Supporting UN Reform

MDTFs employ major concepts, approaches and principles embodied in the Aid Effectiveness Agenda and the United Nations Reform initiative of “Delivering as One”. They constitute a flexible and efficient mechanism for mobilizing funding resources and for providing predictable funding for achieving national and global priorities such as the MDGs. As laid out in the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness and the Accra Agenda for Action, MDTFs emphasize:

• National ownership and alignment with national priorities;
• Harmonization and coordination;
• Effective and inclusive partnerships; and,
• Achievement of development results, and mutual accountability.

MDTFs have a number of key advantages, including:

• Predictable, coordinated and effective support to nationally owned development processes, utilizing within the UN, the specialized expertise and comparative advantages of various UN Organizations, as well as the competencies of the UN and the World Bank;
• Improved resource efficiency and effectiveness, reduced transaction costs, particularly in high-risk environments;
• Increased and untied funding for national authorities directed at nationally determined priorities; 
• Reduced costs relating to resource mobilization, administration, communication, and coordination for national governments, donors, and UN agencies;
• Interaction between donors and transitional authorities that may have not yet acquired full national legitimacy; and,
• Coordinated approach to issues facing developing countries, particularly fragile states.

MDTFs facilitate the delivery of “peace dividends” to populations that have suffered from conflict and crises. This is mostly done through the expeditious implementation of recovery and reconstruction activities. There is increasing evidence that UN MDTFs, to-date all administered by the UNDP MPTF Office, have enabled UN agencies (along with their implementation partners such as Governments and NGOs) to speedily implement agreed project/programme activities using their own financial regulations and rules.  

The MPTF Office supports and promotes the “Delivering as One” mechanism that enables  the effective and expedient coordination, planning and management of development activities involving varied stakeholders—national governments, donors, UN agencies and other implementing partners including the ultimate beneficiaries, the affected populations.

UNDP (on behalf of the UN Organizations) and the World Bank are administering a broad range of MDTFs. The 2008 UN World Bank Partnership Framework agreement recognizes their complementary strengths, capacities and mandates to support national authorities and their populations. It lays down guidelines for enhancing and reinforcing the effectiveness and impact of their respective MDTF operations through mutual cooperation. 

Ensuring Transparency

Complete transparency on all aspects of its activities - such as MDTF establishment, assistance strategy, governance, decision making, donor contributions, transfers  to Participating Organizations, project implementation status, emerging results, evaluations ...etc has been a fundamental tenet of the MPTF Office ever since its inception.

Any stakeholder, and for that matter anyone, with access to a computer and internet, can log on to the MPTF Office GATEWAY and read and/or down load all or any specific information needed on MDTFs administered by the Office at any given time, anywhere in the world.

The MPTF Office GATEWAY displays real time data, with a maximum time lag of two hours. It allows Participating UN Organizations to extract and/or upload annual expenditure data using their respective financial information systems in a spreadsheet format.

Supported by a powerful search engine, the GATEWAY is a dynamic and ever growing library. It contains more than 9600 documents, legal agreements and periodic updates down to the project level.

The MPTF Office GATEWAY is a valuable tool for forging cooperation and communications between the MPTF Office and all its partners. To hone this tool and increase its efficiency and effectiveness, the Office plans to continuously streamline the reporting  process, improve information flows, facilitate expedient archiving and recording of data, reduce costs, and make the system ever-more transparent.

Ensuring Accountability

In discharging its fund administration accountabilities, the MPTF Office relies on:

• continuous and mutually responsive interactions with its stakeholders and partners, particularly the Participating UN Organizations and the MDTF governance and decision-making entities; and,
• keeping all stakeholders well-informed with up to-date and reliable information and data on MDTF activities through a friendly-user website - the MPTF Office GATEWAY - and periodic written reports such as its Quarterly Newsletters.   

It ensures that the governing bodies of individual MDTFs – the Steering Committees - are kept continuously informed of the status of MDTF operations. The MPTF Office GATEWAY is the tool that provides vital information to all stakeholders, particularly the governance and the decision-making bodies.  

Recognizing the inextricable link between accountability and transparency, the MPTF Office has added some new and enhanced features to its GATEWAY, including:

• Search capability and easier navigation that allow Steering Committees, Resident Coordinators, Participating Organizations and donors to find relevant timely information as and when they need it;
• Interactive tools such as maps, timelines, charts, and figures to enable at-a-glance review of large amounts of complex financial data in real-time; and,
• Access to programme-level information and documents that enhance Steering Committees’ capabilities in identifying best practices for replication and shortcomings for correction.

The GATEWAY features also allow:

• Participating Organizations to track transfers made to them on a real-time basis (with only a two-hour time lag) and the specific purpose of each transfer, thereby avoiding delays in  programme start-up; and,
• Donors to track their deposits also in real-time basis (with a two-hour time lag).

Individual users can also customize their review (using My GATEWAY) according to their respective interests, needs and profiles.

The MPTF Office’s AA accountabilities is guided by the UNDG AA Protocol and the related legal documents and is based on the UNDP Administrator’s policy directive on UNDP’s AA accountabilities.  The Executive Coordinator, MPTF Office, reporting to the Assistant Administrator and Director of the Bureau of Management is accountable for UNDP’s fund administration activities.