18 April 2008
Member States met on Thursday 17 April 2008 in a closed all-day meeting at the United Nations to discuss System-wide Coherence, and more specifically the issues of Governance and Institutional Reform.
The meeting, divided into a morning and -afternoon session was co-chaired by Ambassadors Augustine Mahiga of Tanzania and Paul Kavanagh of Ireland.
A number of UN officials opened the morning session by giving detailed briefings on the Resident Coordinator (RC) system at country level. Among other, the briefings centered on the processes of hiring RCs, accountability issues, monitoring and evaluation issues, code of conducts and reporting structures.
During the afternoon session, Member States concentrated on Governance questions. Several states made statements available:
- Cuba, on behalf of the NAM and G77 & China.
- Japan
- Joint statement by Co-Chairs Mahiga and Kavanagh
- Slovenia, on behalf of the European Union
- Sweden, on behalf of the Nordic countries (Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden)
- Switzerland
- Tonga, on behalf of the group of developing Pacific Island States
The next meeting on the issue of System-wide Coherence will be in mid-May 2008. The meeting will be centered on Harmonisation of Business Practices and will include a briefing by the Secretary-General. A meeting on Gender will be scheduled to follow in May.
The Center for UN Reform Education plans to issue a comprehensive overview of the current process once all of the meetings have been concluded.
