| Overview : The United Nations Department for Economic and Social Affairs (UN DESA) holds up the development pillar of the UN Secretariat. It has the mandate to promote the social, economic and environmental dimensions of sustainable development. UN DESA collaborates closely with its partners at regional and country levels in helping countries to formulate and implement national sustainable development strategies in support of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). UN DESA’s work promotes and supports international cooperation for sustainable development. It addresses a range of cross-cutting issues that affect peoples’ lives and livelihoods, especially the most vulnerable. On the other hand, the United Nations Capital Development Fund (UNCDF) is a UN organization with a capital mandate (unique in the UN System) focused on reducing poverty and inequality first and foremost in the least developed countries (“LDC”s). UNCDF develops and tests out financial models which mobilize and recycle domestic resources to meet local needs and which raise investor confidence in these local economies so that they can become centres of growth. UNCDF works with local governments, promoting financial and fiscal accountability to its citizens through local development funds, performance-based grant systems, structured project finance, and by strengthening local revenue streams. It also supports accountable planning, budgeting, and decision-making at the local level, recognizing the importance of having decisions about resources being made locally, and those resources being spent or invested locally. The Financing for Sustainable Development Office of the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN-DESA) in collaboration with the United Nations Capital Development Fund (UNCDF) are enhancing the financing for sustainable development at the local level through the development of subnational asset management action plans (AMAPs) in the least developed countries project. The project aims to address the lack of systematic and long-term asset management at the municipal level in LDCs. Pilot LDCs include Uganda, Tanzania, Bangladesh and Nepal. The ultimate objective of improving subnational asset management is to help local governments meet a required level of basic services, in the most cost-effective manner, through the efficient and farsighted management of physical assets (land, buildings, infrastructure) for present and future customers. The project will follow a four-pronged strategy, consisting of (i) helping target countries assess the needs of their municipalities in asset management by training central government officials in the application of a diagnostic tool to review municipal assets in a holistic and integrated way and identifying critical areas for improvements; (ii) training municipal officials in the formulation and implementation of customized asset management action plans (AMAPs) that can be effectively linked to a medium-term budget and a long-term sustainable development strategy; (iii) increasing the dialogue among different stakeholders, in particular between central government agencies and municipal authorities to better understand the impact of existing policies, laws and regulations on municipal asset management and explore areas of reform and improvement; and (iv) sharing lessons learned and general policy recommendations with other LDCs. In Uganda, the project is partly supported through the Development Initiative for Northern Uganda Programme funded by the European Union (EU) under the 11th European Development Fund (EDF) with the aim of building the capacities of local authorities in the core DINU districts to prepare and implement asset management plans. The project has so far supported the local Government of Mbale, Yumbe and Moroto assess their current level of asset management by reviewing their assets in a holistic and integrated way and analyzing the role and potential of different stakeholders. This was followed by a one-week training for central and local government stakeholders in the development of AMAPs. Some of the local governments trained include: Districts; Amuria, Otuke, Omoro, Yumbe, Amudat. Municipalities: Moroto, Gulu, Hoima and Kasese. A number of follow-up actions were agreed with the stakeholders during the training in Gulu and some of these include: (i) Support Local Governments to develop AMAPs (ii) Provide backstopp support to LGs to Implement the Asset Management Plans and (iii) follow up with central Government for the development of Asset Management Plan framework at national level (iv) Document lesson learnt and best practices, policy recommendations and sharing these with other local governments in Uganda. This consultancy is therefore designed to implement the recommendations of the training workshop. Objectives of the Consultancy: The Objective of this consultancy is to support local governments and the Ministry of local Government develop and implement asset management action plans and improve asset management system in the participating local governments. |
