Democratic Governance

More countries than ever before are working to build democratic governance. Their challenge is to develop institutions and processes that are more responsive to the needs of ordinary citizens, including the poor. UNDP brings people together within nations and around the world, building partnerships and sharing ways to promote participation, accountability and effectiveness at all levels. We help countries strengthen their electoral and legislative systems, improve access to justice and public administration, and develop a greater capacity to deliver basic services to those most in need.

Among the key institutional challenges that Russia is facing, remain high administrative barriers to business, corruption and weak public sector governance, as well as a need to ensure fully independent and effective judiciary system. Given the size of the country, its long-term development prospects are also highly dependant on a rational and stable division of autonomy and responsibility between the federal and sub-national levels of government - a factor having direct impact on the pace and quality of the economic growth and improved provision of social services.

In shaping and implementing its governance portfolio in Russia in 2008-2010, UNDP will continue to address key challenges facing effective and accountable governance in the transition process. UNDP will adopt a strategic approach focusing on areas where UNDP has a comparative advantage. While building on earlier successes, such as the National Human Development Report, which has become a high visibility policy advice and advocacy tool in 2005-2007, or the support to Local Governance and Budgeting reforms, where UNDP-driven pilots impacted the emerging national strategy, the country office will increasingly work with all levels of government in order to ensure sustainability of the results achieved and coherence between local and national frameworks. At the same time the country office will also focus its efforts on engaging national and local stakeholders including academia, civil society and the private sector in the policy discussions - promoting participatory, inclusive processes as well as serving as a platform for resource mobilization and harmonization of approaches. Further, new areas of work will emerge in response to the nationally driven policy processes.

Pro-poor policy reform to achieve MDG targets


• 00014611 - National Human Development Report for the Russian Federation
  ongoing, Budget: US $ 1,046,846.00, Funding: UNDP, UNICEF, UNESCO, UNIC, WHO, UNFPA, Sida, Faculty of Economics at MSU, Academy of Sciences in the Bashkortostan Republic

Civil society empowerment


• 00062195 - Facilitating Interactions between Civil Society and State Governance through the Russian Academy of Public Servic
  ongoing, Budget: US$ 350,000.00; Funding: UNDEF