UNOPS has been present in Bangladesh since
2003, initially providing operational support programme focusing on police
reforms and disaster management. The presence has significantly grown since
then with UNOPS being appointed as Local Fund Agent for the Global Fund to
Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria in Bangladesh.
In 2014, UNOPS established formal
representation in Bangladesh as a response to a request from the Executive
Board of UNOPS to provide more substantial support to the Government of
Bangladesh (GOB) across various areas, including organisational capacity
development and integrating resilient infrastructure approaches. The office
currently provides capacity development support to several GOB infrastructure
related agencies and some key national NGOs with a focus at improving
operational capacities within the sectors of procurement, human resources
management, finance and internal control, and project management.
Moving forward, UNOPS, in line with its global
priorities is expanding its portfolio within Bangladesh to provide more
significant support in the sectors of resilient infrastructure, fund management
and operational efficiency with an emphasis on building national capacities,
improving resilience of communities and supporting in the implementation of
SDGs.
Within this focus, UNOPS is currently in the
process of formulating the next Bangladeshi National Resilient Programme due to
commence in early 2017 with UNDP and UN-Women in keeping with priorities of GOB
and international agreements such as the Sendai Framework. Building on its
extensive global expertise in Fund Management, UNOPS is also working with key
development partners in the country in setting up a development fund that will
support humanitarian, disaster management and early recovery sectors.
DFID–Bangladesh
(DfID-B) Strengthening Humanitarian Preparedness and Response (SHPR) programme
aims to provide more effective, timely and predictable humanitarian support to
refugees in Bangladesh and to vulnerable communities following disasters. It
also aims to strengthen the ability of the Government of Bangladesh to
effectively meet the needs of these groups, and to reduce the scale of impact of
disasters when they occur.
The
principle objectives of the SHPR are articulated around three Pillars.
Pillar 1: Augment
disaster preparedness and disaster risk reduction including for large‐scale
catastrophic emergencies and recurrent, predictable events;
Pillar 2: Respond to the
impact of disaster events through the provision of predictable, timely and high
quality humanitarian support;
Pillar 3: Deliver urgent
humanitarian support to Rohingya refugees and needy host communities as well as
creating an enabling environment for Rohingya related relief agencies through
support to coordination fora.
The
SHPR will be initially established as a facility to support DFID funding only.
Depending on its successful implementation, and possible appetite from other
donors to coordinate their humanitarian funding through a joint platform, the
Programme may be upgraded to a multi donor programme at a later stage.
DFID
has requested UNOPS to provide fund management services to programmes under
Pillar 1 and 3, whilst DFID will manage Pillar 2. Programmes under Pillars 1
and 3 include a Joint Needs Assessment programme by CARE, a joint-UN disaster
preparedness programme via UNICEF, support to Mission Aviation Fellowship,
IOM’s support to the Government of Bangladesh’ Rohingya Strategy and a
Coordinated iNGO programme via ACF.
As
the Fund Manager, UNOPS will be responsible for multiple functions vis-à-vis
the SHPR Programme including, design of an early recovery/emergency response
facility, fiduciary management, legal and technical oversight, monitoring and evaluation, reporting,
quality assurance and communication. UNOPS will also be required to support
DFID in its humanitarian agenda from the onset of this project.