Strategic Area:                                 Democratic Governance

Alignment with strategic plan:    Democratic governance

Project Name:                                  Emergency Technical Assistance (ETA)

Duration:                                           2006 - 2008

Project Summary:
The Emergency Technical Assistance (ETA) project provides short term, targeted support to key government offices in the areas of policy, planning, aid coordination and financial functions. The project supports recruitment of 5-7 key advisors in each of the target offices, as well as short term consultants. The major emphasis of the emergency capacity building is on policy making, planning/aid coordination and on public financial management. The project strategy foresees quick short term technical assistance which is to be taken over by the government offices once revenue collection increases. The project fosters the return of qualified Somali expatriates. The public financial management activities are carried out in partnership with the World Bank which has the policy lead, while UNDP has the lead on implementation.

Expected outputs of the project are:

• A policy and planning advisory unit available to core centres of Government
• Macro economic unit operational to implement Public Finance Management
• Capacity Building Strategy developed to provide a comprehensive framework for future projects aimed at  supporting the return of governance to Somalia
• Transparent and accountable system of planning and budgeting are developed and applied
• Aid coordination structures and mechanisms established

Implementation Description and Achievements:
So far, key technical expertise – mainly Somali and in some cases non-Somalia international expertise – has been made available to key Government institutions both at federal as well as state level. Recruitment of highly qualified staff is a challenge as the protracted conflict has led to a strong brain drain in the country. Experts that have been hired under the Emergency Technical Assistance project concern Economic Advisors, Fiscal Policy advisors, Budget advisors, Legal advisors, Gender Policy advisors and aid coordination specialist.

The experts have focused on strengthening of planning and aid coordination as well as developing fiscal policy, taxation, social policy, gender policy and accelerating the legal drafting process for the Parliament. The experts have also contributed to the coordination of policies and engaging in the linking of policies, strategies and budgets.

With regards to Public Financial Management, the Emergency Technical Assistance Project project has been working closely with the World Bank to develop a strategy and detailed work plan for public financial management, custom, tax and revenue following joint field missions.

As the project had a short term nature, it will be merged into one Institutional Development project as of March 2008 looking at short and long term needs of capacity development.