The Strategic Framework Fund (SFF) was established by the UNITAR Board of Trustees in November 2018 as a flexible, pooled funding instrument to help UNITAR deliver on its mandate and achieve the objectives of the 2018-2021 strategic framework. The SFF focuses on meeting the learning and other capacity development needs of beneficiaries from countries in special situations, including the least developed countries, the landlocked developing countries, the small island developing States and countries in and emerging from conflict, as well as groups made vulnerable, including women and children and persons with disabilities. You may download the Governing Principles of the SFF.
In his report E/2019/81 the Secretary-General recommended and that Member States and other stakeholders, including relevant United Nations entities, strengthen partnerships with the Institute and consider providing financial support to the newly established Strategic Framework Fund.
Narrative Reports
Impact Story
Frontier Technologies for Sustainable Development: Unlocking Women’s Entrepreneurship through Artificial Intelligence in Afghanistan and Iraq
Social entrepreneurship has grown over recent years to offer innovative solutions to development challenges while promoting the generation of livelihoods. This approach could be of great importance for countries in special situations, including countries in or emerging from conflict. UNITAR launched the online course "Frontier Technologies for Sustainable Development: Unlocking Women’s Entrepreneurship through Artificial Intelligence in Afghanistan and Iraq", to enhance women’s entrepreneurship that contributes to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and that harnesses frontier technologies, especially Artificial Intelligence (AI).The course benefitted from a Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida) contribution to the UNITAR Strategic Framework Fund.
Annual financial reports
Independent evaluation of the Strategic Framework Fund (2019-2020)
The Strategic Framework Fund (SFF) was established by the UNITAR Board of Trustees in November 2018 as a flexible, pooled funding instrument to help UNITAR deliver on its mandate and achieve the objectives of the 2018-2021 strategic framework.
The purpose of the evaluation is to assess the relevance, coherence, effectiveness, efficiency, impact, and sustainability of SFF-related programming; to identify any problems or challenges that the SFF has encountered; to issue recommendations, and to identify lessons to be learned on the SFF’s design, implementation, and management.
The evaluation employed a mixed methods approach which incorporated a desk review of project documentation, online survey and key informant interviews (including UNITAR directors, managers, the Executive Director, project beneficiaries, a donor and an implementing partner). In total, 47 allocations formed part of the evaluation scope based on the availability of documentation and the implementation phase of the projects.
The evaluation's main limitation is the small-scale nature of the projects and the cluster approach which did not allow the evaluation to engage in a project-specific focus. Additionally, only 8 projects allocations were analysed in-depth. Thirdly, the data collected from the surveys was of subjective nature and is based on participants’ perceptions. Moreover, the use of colour codes to rate the evaluation criteria imposes a degree of misrepresentation given the variation in the borderline aggregate scores. Finally, the COVID-19 pandemic limited the evaluator’s ability to undertake field visits.
For more information
For more information on the Fund, please send an email to donors@unitar.org.