United Nations Capital Development Fund

UNCDF, UNDP and Partners Launch Landmark Governance Reform Programme in Laos

When communities participate in local development decisions in Laos, schools are often identified as a top priority, so that children like six year old Theo Khammao can get an early education. Photo by Adam Rogers / UNCDF

Vientiane, 05 July 2007: The Government of the Lao People's Democratic Republic (Laos) recently took another step forward in its efforts to tackle poverty and to exit Least Developed Country status by 2020. Supported by the UN Capital Development Fund, the UN Development Programme and bilateral assistance from the governments of Luxembourg and Switzerland, Lao government officials approved a new phase in the flagship Governance and Public Administration Reform (GPAR) programme, focussing on "Support for Better Service Delivery" (SBSD).

The new four-year, $10.3 million SBSD programme is fully government-owned and aims to improve delivery of public services in health, education, agriculture, and rural development, and thereby support implementation of the poverty-reduction strategy central to the National Socio-Economic Development Plan 2006-10.

The programme is built on lessons learned during a series of pilot initiatives carried out at the central and provincial levels over the past decade. One such pilot is the project underway since 2005 in Saravane province, supported by UNCDF, UNDP, and the EC. The Saravane project began in 2005 and has now completed its first planning, budgeting and delivery cycle in three of the province's districts. It has put into place more participatory and transparent planning and budgeting procedures, and District Development Fund (DDF) to make annual block grant allocations, linked to performance and poverty, for use in implementing their development plans to construct social and economic infrastructure such as schools, health clinics and water supplies.

This experience will now be expanded, across five other provinces, through the DDF component of the new GPAR/SBSD programme, through extension of the innovations tested in Saravane The component will also allow some testing of innovations in funding District recurrent budgets for service delivery and in social protection funding.

The DDF component will be supported by Luxembourg, which has committed US$ 4 million and by UNCDF, with US$ 1.1 million. The other programme components will be supported by Switzerland and by UNDP.

Madame Bounpheng Mounphoxay, Minister to the Prime Minister's Office and Chairperson of the Public Administration and Civil Service Authority (PACSA), highlighted the importance of governance reform to development efforts in Lao PDR.

"The Government of Lao PDR has clearly stated that the key to meaningful development is a strong and effective civil service," she said.

"As such, public administration and civil service reform has been a key activity since the early 1990s, and has led to the development of effective partnerships between the Lao Government and the EC, SDC, SIDA, SNV, UNCDF, UNDP, UNV, the World Bank and other development partners."

Roger Shotton, UNCDF's Regional Technical Advisor for Asia and the Pacific, added that the reform programme is expected to contribute significantly to the Government's efforts to meet the challenges of the Millennium Development Goals. "We believe that empowered and accountable local governments are best placed to plan and finance local development and to deliver the basic public goods and services needed for poverty reduction," he said. "The Saravane pilot has already attracted much interest in other Provinces. Within the framework of the new GPAR programme phase we are therefore now expanding the District Development Fund facility to other parts of the country. We believe that over time this mechanism can attract pooled funding from other donors wishing to support local development in Laos through a harmonised approach, working within Government systems and procedures to strengthen them and make them more effective to meet local needs over the long term."

Project Brief in Short

The Support for Better Service Delivery (SBSD) programme will strengthen capacity for strategic planning, financing, management and monitoring of governance reform for more effective, accountable and transparent delivery of services. The design proposes five interrelated outputs to realise this outcome. It will strengthen policy development, strategic oversight and monitoring of governance reform; improve organisational and systems development for more effective, accountable and transparent services; strengthen Human Resource Management and Human Resource Development policies, procedures and capacity and establish a cost effective and sustainable system for civil service training and development; provide a formula based district development funding mechanisms for devolved service delivery, with a particular focus on the provision of expanded and improved health, education, agriculture, and rural development services, identified as key priorities within the Lao Government's five-year National Socio-Economic Development Plan (NSEDP) 2006-2010; focus on supporting demand-driven governance reforms at Central and local levels which directly impact on service delivery. The proposed timeframe for the programme is four years until end 2010 in alignment with the NSEDP.

LINKS

Project Document: Governance and Public Administration Reform (GPAR) project: Support for Better Service Delivery (GPAR-SBSD) [ pdf ]

For more information on UNCDF in Laos, please visit the UNCDF Laos webpage.