Strategic Partnership Framework between UN and Seychelles Stakeholders attend validation workshop |29 August 2018

Mrs Umutoni addressing the stakeholders at the workshop yesterday

A validation workshop for the Strategic Partnership Framework between the United Nations and Seychelles 2018-2022 was organised yesterday for national stakeholders.

The validation workshop forms part of the week-long working visit being undertaken by Christine Umutoni, the resident coordinator for the United Nations (UN) for Mauritius and Seychelles.

The Strategic Partnership Framework (SPF) 2018-2022 is the first one of its kind to be developed between the two parties and is meant to consolidate all the work and support from the UN to the Seychelles in one document.

Mrs Umutoni explained that the SPF is a document which shows the work of the UN “as a family” and elaborates on how the 18 UN agencies will collectively accompany Seychelles as one in its developments.

Since the inception of its partnership with the UN, Seychelles has had and still has a non-harmonised system in which individual UN agencies sign separate bilateral agreements with various ministries and agencies.

This norm is expected to change with the implementation of the SPF.

Henceforth, all UN agencies will synergise and inter-connect their actions through the SPF for the realisation of the framework’s four strategic priority areas.

These priority areas are economic transformation, environmental sustainability and resilience, human capital developments, and data development, science technology and innovation development.

“These are the critical enablers but there are also cross-cutting issues around governance, gender equality and human rights,” Mrs Umutoni stated.

Developed with the help of national consultant Dr Michel Rosalie, the SPF has been drafted with due considerations for the country’s national priorities and has been especially aligned with Seychelles’ National Development Strategy.

Moreover, the framework is also said to be aligned with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) which Seychelles is striving to achieve, the African Union Agenda 2063 as well as with other international and regional agreements Seychelles has made commitments to.

Constant-Serge Bounda -- the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) country director for Madagascar, Comoros and Seychelles -- stated that UNFPA’s role in the SPF will mainly be concerned with thematics such as women empowerment, youths and statistics.

“The presence of the UNFPA, which I represent today in this workshop, is part of the participation of some of the 18 UN agencies. We are here under the UN umbrella, united in action to work with the government of Seychelles on the new Strategic Partnership Framework,” Mr Bounda stated.

“The fact that the aim of this strategy is based on priority areas such as human capital development, data development and economic transformation provides us all with a role to play. Each of these 18 agencies will bring their own contribution according to their line of expertise.”

The UNAids country director for Seychelles, Madagascar, Comoros and Mauritius, Jude Padayachy, was also present at the workshop as part of this initiative.

It is estimated that the SPF will cost a total of $60 million over the span of 2018-2022, with UN funding 58% ($35 million) and the government of Seychelles 42% ($25 million).

Amanda Padaycahy, the director for International Cooperation and Regional Integration, clarified that the government’s portion will not necessarily be a fund solely dedicated to the SPF but rather it is the government’s customary budget for various ministries and sectors that will be taken into account.

Following this validation process, the SPF is expected to be signed tomorrow while its baselines and targets are to be finalised by January 2019.