Disclaimer:
Please be aware that the content herein has not been peer reviewed. It consists of personal reflections, insights, and learnings of the contributor(s). It may not be exhaustive, nor does it aim to be authoritative knowledge.
Title
Please provide a name for your action learning plan.
Governance & Prosperity Portfolio Design
Challenge statement
Challenge type: If you are working on multiple challenges, please indicate if this is your "big bet" or "exploratory" challenge.
Please note: we ask you to only submit a maximum of 3 challenges - 1x Big Bet, 2x Exploratory. Each challenge must be submitted individually.
BIG BET
Challenge statement: What is your challenge? (Please answer in specific terms: "Our challenge is that...”.)
Our challenge is that the Samoa Multi-Country Office serves a cluster of small island nations each with unique challenges and opportunities. How can the portfolio approach be a feasible and effective way to grow the Governance & Prosperity mandate and resource mobilization capabilities?
Background: What is the history of your challenge? What is causing or driving it? Who is involved? How does the current situation look like? What undesired effects does it produce?
Economic Challenges
Budget and Tax Revenue: Samoa has maintained a positive budget balance since 2018, though this is now declining. A major concern is the composition of tax revenue, with corporate tax contributing only 11%, personal income taxes 13%, and taxes on goods and services making up 76%. This heavy reliance on consumption taxes raises questions about the country’s fiscal resilience and capacity to respond to future economic shocks.
Expenditure Trends: Government spending has increased in health, education, agriculture, public order, safety, and public services, but decreased in the environment sector. This shift might undermine long-term environmental sustainability and resilience against climate change.
Renewable Energy Goals
Ambitious Targets: Samoa aims to generate 100% of its electricity from renewable sources by 2025, up from 48% in 2017. This goal is ambitious and aligns with global sustainability targets. UNDP's support in policy, infrastructure development, and capacity building can help achieve this target, creating synergies with broader governance reforms, including energy governance and regulatory frameworks.
Digitalization and Inclusion
Digital Infrastructure and Inclusiveness: Samoa faces limitations in digital infrastructure, policy environment, payments, innovation ecosystem, and customer skills. The 2021 Digital Economy Scorecard highlighted these challenges with scores of 44% for digital readiness and 57% for digital inclusiveness.
Gender Equality and Women Empowerment
Support for Gender Issues: UNDP’s support on gender equality includes tackling root causes of gender-based violence (GBV), discriminatory norms, and legal-regulatory inequalities. Integrated governance approaches can further these efforts by promoting inclusive policies, legal reforms, and access to justice for disadvantaged women, ensuring comprehensive support for gender equality and women empowerment.
Quantitative evidence: What (official) data sources do you have on this challenge that better exemplifies the importance and urgency of this frontier challenge? You can add text, a link, or a picture.
Qualitative evidence: What weak signals have you recently spotted that characterizes its urgency? Please provide qualitative information that better exemplifies the importance and urgency of this frontier challenge. You can add text, a link, or a picture.
Value proposition: What added value or unique value proposition is your Accelerator Lab bringing to solving this challenge? Why is it your Lab that needs to work on this challenge and not other actors within UNDP, other stakeholders in the country respectively? Why is it worth investing resources to this challenge?
The Accelerator Lab offers innovative and agile solutions to address Samoa's multifaceted challenges:
Rapid Experimentation: Quickly pilots and prototypes solutions, using data-driven insights to test and scale effective interventions in tax collection, renewable energy, and other areas.
Environmental Integration: Develops cross-sectoral projects to address environmental sustainability alongside economic and social goals, reversing declining environmental expenditures.
Digital Transformation: Support the designs targeting digital infrastructure improvements and interoperable systems for inclusiveness and accessibility.
Education and Skills Development: Innovative educational programs, expands TVET, and partners with local and international entities to prepare students for modern economic opportunities.
Gender Equality and Social Inclusion: Designs gender-focused projects to address root causes of inequality and GBV, promotes inclusive policies, and engages communities in culturally sensitive solutions.
Scalability and Sustainable Impact: Develops scalable solutions for small island nations, ensuring long-term benefits and systemic change for sustainable development.
Short “tweet” summary: We would like to tweet what you are working on, can you summarize your challenge in a maximum of 280 characters?
The Accelerator Lab offers innovative solutions for Samoa’s challenges: rapid experimentation, environmental sustainability, digital transformation, education & skills development, and gender equality. Together, we create scalable, sustainable change for a brighter future! #Innovation #Samoa
Partners
Who are your top 5 partners for this challenge? Please submit from MOST to LEAST important and state Name, Sector and a brief description of the (intended) collaboration.
Please state the name of the partner:
1. Governance & Prosperity Unit of the UNDP MCO Samoa
2. Cook Islands
3. Niue
4. Tokelau
5. Government agencies
What sector does our partner belong to?
Government (&related)
Please provide a brief description of the collaboration.
The Accelerator Lab will collaborate with various partners to drive integrated and sustainable development across Samoa and its neighboring islands through a portfolio approach by co-creating innovative and interconnected projects for experimentation.
Is this a new and unusual partner for UNDP?
No
Learning questions
Learning question: What is your learning question for this challenge? What do you need to know or understand to work on your challenge statement?
Feasibility and Relevance of a Portfolio Approach
What are the practical benefits and challenges of adopting a portfolio approach for development initiatives in the small nations served by the UNDP MCO in Samoa, Cook Islands, Niue and Tokelau?
What specific geographical and socio-economic factors could support or hinder the implementation of a portfolio approach in the UNDP MCO Samoa context?
Rapid and Quality-Assured Implementation
What strategies can be developed to ensure a rapid yet quality-assured implementation of a portfolio approach, guaranteeing that the development pipeline remains robust and delivers visible, impactful results?
How can processes be streamlined, redundancies reduced, and stakeholder coordination enhanced to support swift and effective execution of a portfolio approach in the UNDP MCO Samoa?
To what stage(s) in the learning cycle does your learning question relate?
Sense, Explore
Usage of methods: Relating to your choice above, how will you use your methods & tools for this learning question? What value do these add in answering your learning question?
Utilizing design thinking, sensemaking, horizon scanning, and exploration will significantly enhance our ability to address the learning questions regarding the feasibility and rapid implementation of a portfolio approach for the MCO. Design thinking fosters a user-centric approach, enabling us to deeply understand the unique needs and challenges of small nations, thus ensuring practical and tailored solutions. Sensemaking helps in interpreting complex socio-economic data and identifying patterns that inform the feasibility and potential barriers of the portfolio approach. Horizon scanning allows us to anticipate future trends and disruptions, ensuring that our strategies are forward-looking and resilient. Exploration encourages innovative and experimental methods to rapidly test and refine strategies, ensuring that quality assurance and impactful results are maintained. Together, these methods and tools will provide a comprehensive, adaptive, and innovative framework to assess and implement a successful portfolio approach for sustainable development in the MCO.
Existing data gaps: Relating to your choice above, what existing gaps in data or information do these new sources of data addressing? What value do these add in answering your learning question?
The Governance & Prosperity Unit have undertaken several economic and digital interventions across Cook Islands, Niue, Samoa and Tokelau. The existing data gaps the AccLab has identified is, whether these economic and digital interventions contribute to the strengthening and enhancing of governance frameworks within the four countries we serve. Information acquired would also support and enhance the development of a more comprehensive governance interventions to address governance components in which the focus has been limited.
Closing
Early leads to grow: Think about the possible grow phase for this challenge - who might benefit from your work on this challenge or who might be the champions in your country that you should inform or collaborate with early on to help you grow this challenge?
Early leads to grow are working with the Members of parliaments and the respective village districts for which priority development needs are now informing national priorities.
END OF ACTION LEARNING PLAN: Thank you! The form saves automatically and your submission has been recorded. You may now exit this window.
1No poverty
16Peace, justice and strong institutions
17Partnerships for the goals
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