UNESCO’s Management Response to the MOPAN 2017-2018 Assessment of UNESCO

The first MOPAN Assessment Report of UNESCO was launched on 1 April 2019 for all UNESCO Delegations, at an event hosted by Norway in its capacity as institutional country lead at UNESCO Headquarters in Paris (Webcast of event). The Assessment Report stresses that the Organization is fit for purpose and that it meets the requirements of an effective multilateral organization; it underlines UNESCO’s clear strategic vision, its central role to the SDGs, its unique expertise, its ability to work in a cross-cutting manner, and its convening power for experts, practitioners, citizens and governments to develop solutions to the global problems embedded in the SDGs. Similarly, it concludes that the Organisation combines its normative and programmatic roles in a mutually reinforcing manner and underscored the rare expertise and authority of the Organization in its fields of competence. The Assessment Report also identifies several areas for improvements, which are detailed in the Report (Assessment Report of UNESCO).

Following the presentation of the MOPAN report, the Organization has now released its detailed Management Response (Management Response of UNESCO).

This document follows MOPAN’s best practice presentation, and presents an overall assessment by the Director-General and a comprehensive Technical Annex, which provides a comprehensive list of key steps and measures taken or foreseen. As stressed in the document, these measures converge with many of the processes underway as part of the UNESCO’s Strategic Transformation process. For instance, as detailed in the document:

• With regard to the area of prioritization several processes of programme review and consultation with the Member States are underway or will soon begin, in the context of the preparation of the future Medium-Term Strategy (2021-2029) and Programme and Budget (2022-2025), to be adopted by Member States in 2021;
• Regarding the necessity to modernise corporate systems a new Sector for Administration and Management headed by an ADG was created to rationalize and modernize UNESCO’s corporate infrastructure. Furthermore, a number of initiatives are already underway to strengthen human resource, Risk Management and the approach to IT tools to ensure enhanced programme delivery;
• Concerning the rationalization of UNESCO’s global field network, an overall strategy for field presence will be developed by the Secretariat, in consultation with Member States, and with due regard to UN reform developments;
• As regards communicating externally UNESCO has recently conducted an in-depth organizational review of its communication function. A new communication, advocacy and engagement strategy will be presented to the autumn 2019 session of the Executive Board (207th session).

The Secretariat will continue to address the issues identified in full consultation with its Member States.

About the Multilateral Organisation Performance Assessment Network (MOPAN):
The MOPAN is a network created in 2002, which is currently composed of 18 member countries with a common interest in assessing the effectiveness of the major multilateral organisations they fund. MOPAN’s mission is to:

• Enhance accountability by supporting its members to assess organisational and development effectiveness of funded multilateral organisations.
• Promote learning by informing strategic engagement and dialogue among multilateral organisations and development partners.

Credibility of assessments is ensured through an impartial, systematic and rigorous approach (MOPAN 3.0 methodology).

Members of MOPAN use the outcomes of these assessments to, inter alia, inform strategic decision-making and engagement with the assessed organisations.

UNESCO is one of the 14 organisations assessed by MOPAN in 2017-2018 period.