Country Programming Procedures: Project Programming

E/RES/854(XXXII)No PDF available

Who created this mandate?

A Resolution of the Economic and Social Council, published in 1961.

What subjects does this mandate have?

6 topics

Country Programmes Programme Planning Project Finance Project Formulation Project Identification Technical Cooperation

What does this mandate say?

7 operative paragraphs

Noting the report of the Technical Assistance Board 21 on methods of implementing the decisions of the Council in resolution 786 (XXX) to adopt project programming and eliminate agency planning shares and sub-totals from the procedures of the Expanded Programme,

Considering that the eighty-five per cent guarantee to participating organizations embodied in Council resolution 542 B (XVIII) of 29 July 1954, although intended to protect the participating organizations against sudden fluctuations in their share of Expanded Programme resources, has never in fact come into effect and is incompatible with the decision to abolish planning shares and sub-totals,

Believing further that it would be helpful to many Governments, in framing their requests for assistance from the Expanded Programme, if they were given some indication of the fields in which the participating organizations could most effectively help them, as well as of the general principles which the Council believes to be of greatest importance in the establishment of priorities for the achievement of Expanded Programme goals,

I.

Endorses, subject to the following considerations, the recommendations of the Technical Assistance Board contained in its above-mentioned report, summarized in the annex to this resolution:

Although long-term projects should be prepared and submitted for their entire duration, the period of Technical Assistance Committee approval for these projects should not be more than four years; consideration to the extension of such projects will be given by the Technical Assistance Committee only in those exceptional cases where there is adequate technical justification for such extension and satisfactory evidence of efforts being made to complete such projects and transfer the responsibility for them to the recipient Governments without undue delay;

The Technical Assistance Board should exercise especial vigilance against the possibility of the Expanded Programme losing flexibility, particularly as a result of long-term projects taking up too large a proportion of the Programme's total resources and should report to the Technical Assistance Committee on this subject in respect of each programming period;

The two-year programming cycle should be extended on an experimental basis for the years 1963-1964 and the Technical Assistance Committee should review the position again in the summer of 1963;

In future the Executive Chairman's contingency (d) authority should be approved by the Technical Assistance Committee for a full programming period, subject to continuing close review by the Executive Chairman of authorizations carried over from one year to the next; the amount of the authority should be subject to future review by the Technical Assistance Committee at the req uest of the Executive Chairman in the light of expenence;

Decides that paragraph I b (vi)

of resolution 542 B 11 (XVIII) establishing a lower limit of eighty-

e r E/TAC/105. five per cent of its share in the preceding programme for the share of any participating organization in a current programme shall no longer apply;

Requests the Executive Chairman, in determining the use of his planning reserve for the 1963-1964 programming period, to take fully into account the desirability of continuing adequate provision for the needs of the developing countries for assistance in the fields of activity covered by the World Meteorological Organization, the International Telecommunication Union,

the International Civil Aviation Organization and the International Atomic Energy Agency;

Invites the participating organizations to prepare, for the information of Governments interested in receiving assistance from the Expanded Programme in 1963- 1964 and subsequent programming periods,

concise statements of the ways in which they can be of particular assistance to countries in the process of development, especially through technical co-operation most closely related to the Governments' own development plans;

Decides that the Technical Assistance Committee 5. shall prepare, at its 1962 summer session, an indication of the most appropriate principles for the guidance of Governments wishing to establish priorities for assistance under the Expanded Programme.

4 August 1961.

Report of the Technical Assistance Board on Project Programming

In 1960, the Economic and Social Council

Introduction.

adopted resolution 786 (XXX) on country programming procedures. This resolution approved in principle the system of project programming recommended by the Technical Assistance Board (TAB)." I t also requested the Board to submit to the Technical Assistance Committee (TAC), at its 1961 summer session, specific recommendations for simplification and improvement of the programming procedures,

.. in particular by project programming,

the elimination of agency sub-totals from country planning targets and the elimination of the present system of agency planning shares ".

The present report has been submitted in response to this resolution of the Council.

It also includes the Board's views on the question of the level of regional programmes, which was referred to it by the Committee last year.

As already stated in its first report on project programming," 1he Board recommends the adoption of project programming with effect from 1963-· i.e., after the expiration of the 1961- I962 bienniurn, for which a programme has already been approved by the Committee.

Definition of short-term and long-term projects.

As mentioned later (para. 17), the Board recommends the extension of the twoyear programming cycle for another biennium covering t 963-1964. Using the programming period as the dividing line between shortand long-term projects, the Board recommends the following definitions:

Any project planned to be started and completed within twenty-four consecutive months will be considered a short-term

ea F/TACj97

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Who created this mandate?

What subjects does this mandate have?

What does this mandate say?

I.

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