A three-day international conference on the United Nations’ (UN) efforts to reform itself at country level opened in Hanoi on June 14.

The High Level Tripartite Conference on Delivering as One (DaO) has brought together more than 260 participants from countries that have adopted the DaO’s approach, as well as donors, several UN agencies, international organisations and diplomatic missions in Vietnam.

The participants will learn from the experiences of countries who have taken the DaO approach and based on this, the conference will set out an agenda for taking further action to enhance, deepen and expand the DaO’s approach.

The conference will also inform donors of the progress made as well as common challenges when implementing DaO.

The DaO approach was launched by the UN and has been piloted by eight countries including Albania, Cape Verde, Pakistan, Mozambique, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uruguay and Vietnam since 2007 to improve the coherence, effectiveness and relevance of the UN’s operations in these countries.

DaO is being adopted voluntarily by a growing number of other countries, and a tremendous amount of commitment and energy has gone into making this element of the UN’s reforms a reality.

On addressing the opening ceremony, Deputy Minister of Planning and Investment Nguyen The Phuong stressed that the Hanoi conference demonstrates the Vietnamese Governments commitment to using DaO while at the same time helping with efforts to improve the coherence, effectiveness and relevance of the UN’s development system.

“After three years of piloting new ways of working together, to ensure a more relevant, coherent and efficient approach by the UN’s system to a nation’s development priorities, the conference is an excellent opportunity to learn and come up with recommendations for the way forward”, Phuong said.

Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung, Minister of Planning and Investment Vo Hong Phuc, Deputy Secretary General of the UN Asha Rose Migiro and many other senior leaders from other countries and international organisations are expected to attend the Opening Ceremony of the High Level segment of the conference scheduled for June 16.

The conference is expected to produce a statement charting the way forward for the “Delivering as One” initiative, which underlines the commitment of governments, donors and the UN system to further action to ensure that the UN delivers a more effective system at country level./.