Priority Areas

The United Nations Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework (UNSDCF) 2023-2027 is the first partnership framework agreed between the Government of India (GOI) and the United Nations since the implementation of the United Nations development system reforms on 1 January 2019, which aligns the UN with its commitment to deliver on the promises of the 2030 Agenda by reinvigorating the Resident Coordinator system and ushering in a new era of development coordination.

In India, the reform and its new way of working across UN agencies and across Ministries in an integrated approach faced its first test in March 2020 with the outbreak of COVID-19, which led to several waves of infections and over half a million deaths. The UN Country Team’s (UNCT) Joint COVID-19 task force, UN Joint Health Response and Socio-Economic Response Plan tested new approaches and management arrangements as embodied.

And the “all hands on deck” approach adopted by the UNCT in India, supported by the Resident Coordinator’s Office (RCO) served as a proof of concept for the implementation of the UN reforms in India and taught the entire UNCT that the new way of working was
indispensable for managing the cascade of new crises —from the COVID-19 pandemic to the conflict in Ukraine, from the severe effects of climate change to disruptive technologies, from landslides in the Himalayas to flooding in Kerala.