One UN Report 2020 - State of Kuwait

The One UN Report 2020  provides an outline for a well-coordinated, sustained and harmonized engagement

in support of the Delivering as One (DaO) agenda in the State of Kuwait. This annual report shows that Kuwait is

making good progress on the United Nations four pillars of people, prosperity, planet and peace.

During 2020, the UNCT supported the implementation of SDGs though the “Risk mitigation and Recovery Plan

under Covid-19” (RMRP) facing the global crisis. UNCT provided timely technical assistance and knowledge

sharing on “socio-economic resilience” in areas of Supply-Chain management, food systems resilience,

support to SMEs, and the promotion of innovative business models and ideas to SMEs to address the

current challenges. Promoting HRBA, countering hate speech and GBV.

This report comes at an exciting period of our work in Kuwait, when the country has embarked on a

bold transformation plan to propel the nation into a sustainable development and resilient economy.

We thank the Government of Kuwait for its extensive collaboration and support to implement the flagship joint initiatives which are grounded in the critical elements of the Sustainable Development Goals. The Government of

Kuwait was one of the first to affirm, to the Secretary-General, its support for the UN Reform initiative. Despite

challenges faced by the global crisis, the Government has expressed its commitment to pursuing the country’s social and economic development including building human capital. In 2020, the United Nations and the Government of Kuwait jointly reviewed the Strategic Partnership Framework 2020-2025 and agreed on the way forward.

We appreciate our development partners from all sectors for the strengthened relationships that have resulted

in a substantive increase in interest in working with the United Nations as a partner of choice, predicting

a promising diversified funding base in the future collaborations. We are also happy to report that the UN is

leveraging its work with communities, the Government and development partners in the context of the

human rights, humanitarian assistance, development and peace building, Energy Nexus, health and digital

transformation. During 2020, we’ve witnessed an increased involving the media, civil society, the

private sector and general public, leveraging the UN’s comparative advantage to best address the State’s

key priorities. With the UN’s support, Kuwait is now better prepared to quickly and effectively coordinate

international health crisis and humanitarian assistance for crises.

The UN Resident Coordinator and the UN Country Teams are pleased with the increased use of information

technology in the development context to address the critical information and evidence gaps. Looking

forward to 2021, the Government is reviewing, with UN support, the finalization of the SCF which will be

presented as the One UN binding document for the first time. For continued success in 2021, areas of the

human capital and knowledge economy, economic divarication, climate change, global positioning have

been prioritized by the UN and the Government within the context of the SCF 2020-2025. As the United Nations

we stand firm in our commitment to meaningful multisector stakeholder engagement, improved national

coordination mechanisms and data collection to facilitate informed policymaking. The United Nations would also like to acknowledge other partners for their invaluable support to our programmes and initiatives.

Our One UN Report also builds upon joint initiatives that have successfully been undertaken in the past

few years and seeks to highlight the lessons learned, the UNCT collective efforts to improve coherence,

coordination and harmonization of the United Nations development system, while the SCF ensures adoption

of individual agencies’ special focus on their specific global mandates, to efficiently and effectively deliver

on development aspiration for the country.