Introduction

Kenya was one of the 18 countries involved in piloting CCA/UNDAF at the country level. The work on CCA started in August 1997 and was completed in March 1998. The UNDAF was completed in November 1998. The CCA will be revised by the end of 2000 using the revised guidelines to be used as a basis for mid-term review and development of new agency programmes from 2001.

Lessons Learnt

Some of the key lessons learnt from the pilot exercise include:

• The UN must manage the process, using its own technical staff to prepare the CCA and UNDAF documents. Consultants can provide specific inputs, but cannot be expected to manage the activities nor write the documents. In Kenya, a team of consultants had a wide responsibility at the on-start, but this was later taken over by an inter-agency team of technical staff as the consultants failed to progress towards the desired outcome.
• It is important that all the UN agencies are fully involved and have a common understanding of the process and expected outcomes. In Kenya, there was varying expectations from the agencies to the exercise at the beginning, but this was harmonized in the course the process.
• It is important to fully involve the government and other stakeholders from the start. This was not done in the pilot in Kenya, as it was felt that the UN first needed to improve its internal coordination. In the revision of CCA/UNDAF, other stakeholders (GOK, NGOs, etc), will be fully involved from the start.
• It is important to make CCA/UNDAF institutional set-up simple. In Kenya, eleven theme groups headed by UN Representatives were established following the completion of the CCA. It was later realized that this was far too many, as the structure was too fragmented and hampered effective collaboration. Also there was a problem of too many meetings. The number of theme groups was therefore later reduced to six.
• It is important to use a limited number of indicators in the CCA to avoid information overload and lengthy discussions on which indicators should be included or not. In Kenya, the discussions on which indicators should be included were difficult and time-consuming. In the revision of the CCA, the plan is to use the indicator framework suggested in the guidelines as a basis, possibly adding a few if deemed necessary to reflect national concerns.
• It is vital to harmonize UN agency cycles in order to develop an effective UN response to the priorities and objectives agreed upon in the CCA and UNDAF. In Kenya, the programme cycles were not harmonized in the pilot phase, hence follow-up at agency level was limited to re-orientation within existing programmes. In the revision process, three agencies (UNDP, UNICEF and WFP) have harmonized programme cycles with UNFPA expected to harmonize by 2003. Full harmony of cycles is expected in 2004.
• It is important to undertake an in-depth analysis in the CCA in order to narrow down the focus and assist in agreeing on priorities. Due to the lengthy process of preparing the pilot CCA, with the strong efforts on agreeing on indicators, the analysis component was given little attention. In the revision, the analysis will be given priority, to facilitate the selection of a limited number of priorities for the UNDAF.

Challenges

• A key challenge of CCA/UNDAF process has been the lack of clear government leadership in the coordination of development efforts in general. In the revision exercise, a strong effort will be made to engage government starting with a high-level meeting in the launch of the CCA revision.
• Another challenge is how get UNDAF Theme Groups actively involved in addressing policy issues. Their work has so far focused mainly on issues such as networking, database development, situation analyses, etc.
• A related challenge is that Theme Groups currently cover a wide range of sectoral and cross-cutting issues reflecting the wide scope of agency mandates. Following the revision of the CCA/UNDAF, the institutional set-up will be reviewed in light of the priorities identified.

BACK