Closing the UN Mandate-Results Gap: Realigning Incentives for Lasting Impact

​One of the central aims of the Secretary-General’s development system reform was to shift emphasis from direct service delivery toward integrated policy advice. A 2017 report of the Secretary-General stated that: “There is also a visible gap in the delivery of important functions required for the 2030 Agenda. The data revealed insufficient capacities for the provision of integrated policy advice. Providing integrated policy services is one of the main reasons why the United Nations development system has to do business differently. Strengthening the system’s capacity for policy advice will also be critical as governments increasingly request support in how best to integrate the Goals into their national plans and governance structures.”²⁰ Both the 2020 and 2024 QCPR resolutions reinforced this objective.²¹  

​Eight years later, several reports indicate that the UN did not reach this objective. A 2022 study concluded that the UN development system’s prevailing operating model is not aligned with this vision of a coherent, high-level collective offer focused on strategic policy advice.²² In 2024, a consultancy report indicated that the proportion of UN expenditure allocated to policy advice had remained at around 5% since 2017. In 2025, the UN system-wide Evaluation Office released an evaluation of the new generation of UNCTs. It stated that since the shift towards policy advice aims to match UN capability to country needs, the new generation of UNCTs should help facilitate this shift. However, the configuration exercises, implemented to achieve a new generation of UNCTs, do not appear to have contributed to the shift from service delivery to integrated policy advice, even where there is demand.²³

​To ensure that the UN’s structures enable policy advice, the UNDS reform aimed to strengthen the RC system and revamp the UN’s regional approach. A 2024 OIOS evaluation found that UN Resident Coordinators fulfilled their co-ordination role to enable integrated policy advice, including through convening, facilitating and advocacy. However, it also found that project-based approaches and the focus on individual agency programme delivery negated longer-term, strategic thinking on policy approaches, including discussions on how to align national plans and policies with the Sustainable Development Goals.   

​The purpose of the revamped regional approach was to strengthen linkages between the regional and country levels, enabling UNCTs to draw on policy expertise from the regional level to deliver policy advice at the country level. However, the regional approach envisaged in the UNDS reform has not materialised. A recent evaluation noted that efforts to pool expertise at the regional level, to support UNCTs, do not appear to have delivered. Although some regional "rosters of expertise" were compiled, Resident Coordinators and UNCTs did not indicate that they used them.

​Alongside structural reforms, the Secretary-General also sought to address funding constraints through the 2019 Funding Compact. The compact included voluntary commitments by Member States and UN entities. Member States committed to providing more flexible and predictable funding to the UN development system. UN entities committed to greater collaboration, transparency and efficiency. However, the Funding Compact did not create the envisaged shift in the quality of UN funding.  

​In 2024, an updated Funding Compact 2.0 was launched to reinforce commitments on UN funding, effectiveness, coherence, and efficiency. It articulates the linkage between funding and policy advice: “The United Nations development system has always had a mixture of operational and normative policy support functions, but most of its expenditure and country-level capacities have long been concentrated on direct service delivery through projects. In large part, this is due to the extent to which funding to the United Nations is earmarked.”

​While the UN’s system-wide objective was to increase its capacities for policy advice, UN entities have mostly moved towards expanding their work on capacity development and direct support and service delivery. Table 1 provides an overview of how the mix of functions deployed by UN entities has shifted in recent years.  

​Specialised agencies and UN Secretariat entities that traditionally focused more on providing normative support, including UN-Habitat, OHCHR, FAO and WHO, have expanded their work on capacity development, direct support and service delivery in programme countries in recent years. In some cases, these expanded roles are driven by Member State demand. The 2024 MOPAN assessment of WHO noted that it has increased its provision of capacity development in support of its normative objectives and supported service delivery in the context of failed health systems. While some Member States expressed concern that the capacity development function was not consistent with WHO’s core role, WHO sees it as a response to a growing demand from programme countries.

​Other UN entities, including UNDP, UNFPA, UN Women and UNICEF, have traditionally deployed a wider range of functions to deliver on their mandates. Among these entities, the attention to policy advice in strategic planning documents has declined over time. An analysis of the 2018–2021 strategic plans of these entities found that approximately 28% of their output indicators in results frameworks, which describe each entity’s mandated programme of work, related to policy advice. Notably, in the previous strategic plan period (2014–2017), a much higher share of output indicators (39%) was policy-related. According to interviews, this sharp decline reflected growing donor pressure to demonstrate quantifiable impact to their taxpayers.²⁴ UNOPS has traditionally focused on direct support and service delivery but aims to provide more policy advice by moving up the value chain, i.e. engaging with partners higher up in the decision-making process.

​For the humanitarian sector, the 2016 Grand Bargain included commitments to increase multi-year investments in the institutional capacities of local and national responders, including preparedness, response and co-ordination, and channel 25% of humanitarian funding through local and national responders. Moreover, the humanitarian-development-peace (HDP) nexus required humanitarian organisations to increase collaboration and engagement with development actors and national authorities, including providing policy advice. MOPAN’s assessments show that humanitarian agencies, including UNHCR, WFP and IOM, are increasing their work on capacity development. But a 2023 independent review observed that these efforts did not contribute to a concrete increase in funding provided directly to local actors.²⁵

​Capacity development has in recent years been reviewed rather critically, with one major line of criticism being that it tends to pursue “technical solutions to what are often political challenges”.²⁶ As a result, a focus on capacity development may result in neglecting root causes and may even strengthen the wrong capacities, thus potentially prolonging an undesirable situation.²⁷  

​Given the recent criticism of capacity development, it is noteworthy that UN entities are increasing their capacity development efforts. It could be argued that building the capacities of local actors might constitute a technical solution to a more political problem concerning the allocation of humanitarian funding. Well-capacitated local responders might struggle to make an impact if donors and UN entities don’t channel funding through them for political reasons.