On the eve on the 70th anniversary of the United Nations and a month after the historic United Nations Summit which adopted the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), UNECE signed a United National Development Assistance Framework (UNDAF) for the period of 2016-2020 with Belarus, one of the founding members of the United Nations.
The signing ceremony took place in Minsk on 23 October 2015 in the presence of President Alexander Lukashenka, representatives of the diplomatic corps and international organizations. It was preceded by the planting of a Tree of Peace and Sustainable Development and followed by the opening of an exhibition dedicated to the 70th anniversary of the UN. The evening saw the departure of the UN70 Belarus Express for SDGs from the central train station. Government officials, representatives of international organizations, civil society, the private sector and youth will travel across Belarus for one week, to mobilize support and action to SDGs.
As a landlocked middle income country with economy in transition, Belarus has been facing many challenges in its development. Nonetheless, it has succeeded in achieving most of the MDG goals. UNECE has been supporting the development efforts of Belarus through various regional/subregional programmes and UNDAF.
In particular, UNECE supported the efforts of Belarus to enhance its competitiveness by undertaking an Innovation Performance Review. The second Innovation Performance Review to be held in 2016 will assess progress in the implementation of these recommendations and provide policy advice on further improvements in this area.
At the request of the Government of Belarus, UNECE also conducted a National PPP Readiness Assessment. Following the recommendations from this assessment, UNECE, with the substantive support of its International PPP Centre of Excellence has been delivering a two-year PPP capacity building project ( EUR 1.1 million ) co-financed by the European Union and UNDP.
UNECE also made a study of regulatory and procedural barriers to trade in Belarus, to support its successful integration into regional and global supply chains; promote information exchange and greater accountability and transparency. Under the new UNDAF, UNECE will assist Belarus in developing a strategy for further simplification and harmonization of trade data exchange and documentary requirements.
In cooperation with national stakeholders, UNECE completed the third Environmental Performance Review (EPR) of Belarus in 2015, which covers 13 different issues. The EPR Expert Group is currently reviewing the recommendations. They will be approved at the Committee on Environmental Policy session this month. Following the EPR, UNECE will assist the Government in implementing policy recommendations. It will also support Belarus in transboundary cooperation on water management and climate change adaptation in the Neman River basin and in the implementation of UNECE environmental conventions.
Following the Global Assessment of the national system of official statistics conducted in collaboration with Eurostat, UNECE will strengthen the national capacity of Belarus for the production and dissemination of internationally comparable demographic, social, economic and environmental statistics and indicators for evidence-based policy-making, and for monitoring and reporting on the SDGs.