Opening Statement of the UN Resident Coordinator in Eswatini, Ms Nathalie Ndongo-Seh, at the UNCT Retreat 2020

A very good morning to all of you, colleagues at the UN premises and colleagues connecting from your homes in Eswatini and elsewhere.

It is with great pleasure and a sense of relief that I see all of you and welcome all of you to this year’s UNCT Retreat, which is being held under difficult circumstances unprecedented in the 75 year history of the United Nations.

Our meeting today, and over the next few days, is a clear demonstration of our resolve to ensure the continuity of UN operations and performance of key functions under our One UN BCP; and our commitment to support the Government and the  people of Eswatini today, this year and throughout the cycle 2021-2025.

I commend each of you for taking the time to be a part of this retreat, as we gather as One UN family with the goal to carefully and very critically consider issues – including health, education, food security, economy, climate change, governance, human rights, protection of vulnerable groups -that impact the lives of Emaswati. This retreat will help to strengthen the UN team and our Delivery as One approach; will  make the UN presence visible and even more relevant than ever in the country; will help us enhance and build more strategic partnerships while, in the process, advancing Agenda 2030 of SDGs in Eswatini.

A warm to welcome to our facilitator Ms. Marjorie Mavuso, who will have the difficult task to hold our hand and keep us both disciplined and focused on key priorities and strategic outcomes throughout this retreat; a warm welcome as well to our colleagues  in South Africa Joni from ILO, Abigail and Janica from OHCHR, and Dr Willis Odek, from UNFPA, who will be guiding us on the theory of change as we find relevant solutions to the unique needs of the country. It is a pleasure to have you with us: we will ensure that you are given the floor at any time for your inputs.

At last year’s retreat, I stated that we are living in a rapidly changing environment and that our agility, flexibility and ability to adapt are continuously being challenged. Believe me when I said that, I did not have COVID-19 in mind but always knew that with climate change and natural disasters, health pandemics such as Ebola or Lassa fever,  social or political grievances that may threaten peace and stability, tomorrow can never be predicted . This COVID-19 pandemic is testing our resilience: like never before, we need to work together to support individuals, communities and the Eswatini economy to react and recover better.

Our commitment to the UN reform, which we reaffirmed in the 2019 UNCT Retreat, is critical in the current UN response to COVID-19.  The pandemic is giving us an opportunity to strengthen our Delivering as One (DaO) approach by being guided by a collaborative mindset, by re-committing to working better together, and by pledging to discard any silo approach to work.

The is the last retreat in the cycle of our still valid UNDAF 2016-2020,. In April last year, we began the process of developing our new cooperation framework, the UNSDCF 2021-2025, which is expected to be signed by July 2020. In February, we submitted our draft CCA, a collaborative effort by all of us with technical guidance and review from DCO  regional bureau in Africa and HQ.

I want to take this opportunity to thank all of you for your dedication and commitment to this important exercise. I recall the tireless efforts of the PPSG members, who spent long hours in small groups and teams, ensuring that the document was of the quality and standards that we can all be proud of.

The UNSDCF represents our collective offer to support Eswatini in addressing key priorities and gaps in the implementation of the SDGs. In this Retreat, we will begin the process of formulating strategic priorities and outcomes, looking at our comparative advantages and complementarity with partners. We will also  seek to establish the status of SDG implementation in Eswatini.

Our strategic prioritization process will be guided by national priorities as outlined in the National Development Plan (NDP) and the Government Strategic Roadmap. We have invited the Ministry of Economic Planning and Development (MEPD) to provide  an overview of Eswatini’s development landscape, including progress made in the implementation of the SDGs. We will warmly welcome Make Phindile Masango, Senior Economist at MEPD, who will  share with us such important developments and possibly updates on the socio-economic front.

The SDGs remain our overall shared agenda and we want to use this retreat to chart a clear pathway towards achieving the 2030 targets. Despite the threat of COVID-19, this is still a Decade of Action around the world and we must continue to accelerate efforts towards achieving our goals.

Finally, and on more practical matters, we will finalize and adopt the UNCT Workplan for 2020 already discussed in previous UNCT meetings. We face many challenges and time is against us. However, without a plan, we are likely to miss opportunities and weaken our collective impact in our efforts to support the Government and the people of Eswatini. We will conclude this retreat on a reminder of the Management and Accountability Framework (MAF) provides a clear, unambiguous framework for management and accountability within UN Country Team, in a way that remains faithful to the letter and spirit of the General Assembly resolution on the repositioning of the UN development system.

I wish you/us  a successful and very enjoyable UNCT Retreat. I thank you.