Government of Ireland Scales up Support for UNCDF Local Development Programme in East Timor

Young boy carrying fish in Manatuto, Timor-Leste | UN Photo/Martine Perret

DILI, TIMOR-LESTE - 3 May 2007: Further signaling its support for local governance as an avenue for improving livelihoods, the Government of Ireland recently increased its support for the Local Governance Support Programme (LGSP) in East Timor (Timor-Leste) with an additional EUR 1,150,000 (US$1.53 million) assistance package. The programme is jointly coordinated by UNCDF and the UN Development Programme (UNDP). The support was channeled through Irish Aid, the development arm of the Irish Government.

UNCDF programmes in Timor-Leste are inline with the priorities reflected in the National Development Plan (NDP), which was prepared in advance of independence in a highly participatory manner involving consultations with more than 38,000 Timorese. Similar in many respects to UNCDF's local development programmes elsewhere in Asia and Africa, the Timor Leste Local Development Programme (LDP)has two basic objectives:

• To reduce poverty in pilot districts, through local-level infrastructure and service delivery.
• To inform national policy on decentralization, by piloting the development and application of procedures for local level planning, financing and implementation of public goods and services.

In a ceremony to mark the agreement, the Deputy Special Representative of the United Nations Secretary General/UNDP Resident Representative Finn Reske-Nielsen and the Irish Aid Head of Mission to Timor-Leste, Mr. Charles Lathrop signed a Letter of Understanding on 27 April 2007.

UNCDF regional technical advisor Roger Shotton said the goal of the LGSP is to make a significant, substantive and sustainable contribution to poverty reduction in Timor-Leste through the establishment and empowerment of accountable and effective local government. "By endowing local government bodies with greater responsibilities for planning, budgeting, and implementation of infrastructure and service delivery, the move should result in an improved focus on the rural poor, greater efficiency, better implementation arrangements, and enhanced responsiveness," he said.

The LGSP builds on the success of a previous UNCDF project, the Local Development Programme (LDP), which also was supported by Irish Aid.

Describing Ireland as a close UNDP donor partner in Timor-Leste, Finn Reske-Nielsen said that continued support to improved governance was critical. "Good governance remains a UN priority with decentralization as a key component to promote service delivery, particularly in the rural areas," he said. "The DSRSG stressed the importance of donor reporting and substantive partnerships with donors to provide consolidated and appropriate advice to the Government.

In his remarks, the Irish Aid Head of Mission stated that local governance "has been one of Irish Aid's longest-standing involvements and an area that has occasioned the most lessons learnt. It is a privilege for us to be supporting such efforts here through UNDP and UNCDF." He also underscored the long standing and strong cooperation between Irish Aid and UNDP in Timor-Leste and elsewhere.

UNCDF Timor Leste Technical Advisor Jill Engen said UNDP and UNCDF recently merged two pre-existing projects in the area of decentralization into the Local Governance Support Programme, which is being implemented in partnership with the Ministry of State Administration. "The new programme has achieved both cost and implementation efficiencies through joint execution and a collaborative management structure," she said.

For more information on UNCDF's work in East Timor, please visit the UNCDF Timor-Leste website.