Dear Colleagues,

As you are aware, all programme countries have agreed to adopt and implement comprehensively by 2006, “national development strategies to achieve the internationally agreed development goals and objectives, including the Millennium Development Goals.”  Donors, for their part, have agreed to further align their assistance with these national strategies and to “ensure that development assistance is used to build national capacities,” identifying capacity as the primary work of UN Country Teams.  However, a national response would not be complete without incorporating key concerns about the localization of MDGs at sub-national levels.  

Within this broad context, UNDP’s Capacity 2015 has developed a draft Toolkit for the Localization of MDGs (click to view).  The Toolkit is intended as a contribution into the process of linking MDG-based national development strategies with local actors and processes.  The work was led by the Capacity 2015 team based at the UNDP Regional Centre in Bratislava, with inputs from the UK-based Local Government International Bureau (LGIB).  Various colleagues from other Regions and Practices have already contributed. The toolkit has been designed also as a potential complementary contribution to the "How-To Guide to MDG-Based National Development Strategies" and the UNDG-sponsored "MDG training toolkit" (http://mdgtoolkit.undg.org) as previously circulated on the network.

Apart from your generic constructive comments on the attached Toolkit, we would appreciate it if you could please address the following questions:

 

Does Section 1 (Introduction) provide sufficient context / explanation about the MDGs? Please specify additional information you think should be added.
Do you have any additional resources / case studies that would strengthen any of the steps in Section 2 (Steps for Strategy Development)?
Are you aware of any additional organizations that we should include in Section 3 (Useful Organizations)?
Are you aware of any additional toolkits / training resources that would be useful in Section 4 (Training Resources)?

Please send your comments to dafina.gercheva@undp.org, milan.chrenko@undp.org and/or jonas.rabinovitch@undp.org by 21 October. Based on your comments, the toolkit will be revised and finalized, with the launch expected to occur in mid-November.

We look forward to hearing from you.

Best regards,
Jonas Rabinovitch
Global Manager, Capacity 2015
Capacity Development Group, BDP/UNDP
304 East 45th Street, Suite 630      
New York, NY, 10017
Tel:  1-212-906-5780
Fax: 1-212-906-5896
http://www.undp.org/capacity