United Arab Emirates

The UAE became a member of the United Nations in 1971 and has committed itself implementing the principles of the ‘Charter of the United Nations’ and what it stands for: respect of human rights, international cooperation for the maintenance of peace and security, solidarity with the poor and the disadvantaged, justice, human development and prosperity for all. The UAE permanent representation to the United Nations (UN) in New York and Geneva facilitates coordination with the UN and UN agencies. The UAE is (or has been) a full member of specialized agencies such as the International Civil Aviation Organization; International Labour Organization; United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization; Universal Postal Union; World Health Organization; and the World Intellectual Property Organization. The UAE is a member of the International Renewable Energy Agency, and hosts its headquarters at Abu Dhabi. The country is a signatory to a number of UN conventions and inter-government resolutions. More recently, the UAE has joined the ‘Geneva Declaration on Armed Violence and Development’.

In 1999, the UNDP Executive Board recognized the “important contribution that UNDP brings to supporting net contributor countries ... in their pursuit of the objectives of sustainable human development” and considered net contributor countries “as a separate group of programme countries outside of the [target for resources assignment from the core] distribution model.” UNDP since has been providing a range of development services to 69 middle-and high-income countries, which includes 46 net contributing countries. There are five net contributing countries in the Regional Bureau for Arab States region: Bahrain, Kuwait, Libya, Saudi Arabia and the UAE. There are variations among these net contributing countries, from high-income countries to middle-income countries. There are also variations in terms of achievement of the MDGs, democratic governance, institutional capacities and justice and security. Therefore, there is no common programming approach for UNDP to take in these countries, and each country’s country programme is expected to adapt to the context and priorities.

This evaluation of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) contribution to development results in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) was conducted by the UNDP Evaluation Office (EO), with Vijayalakshmi Vadivelu as the Task Manager as well as Team Leader, and with contribution of Evaluation Office Senior Adviser Michael Reynolds and Khalid Al Yahya, Dubai School of Government.

The Evaluation Office of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) conducted an independent country-level evaluation in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The Assessment of Development Results (ADR) analysed the UNDP role and contributions to development results in the UAE between 2002 and mid-2011. This period includes the previous (2002–2006) and the ongoing (2008–2012) UNDP country programmes. The ADR assesses the effectiveness of the UNDP strategy to facilitate and leverage national efforts to achieve development results and makes forward-looking recommendations for the next country programme.