The Conference covered policy choices and investment decisions that have contributed to significant institutional transformation and ultimately will enable states to achieve national development and Millenium Development Goals (MDGs). It also focused on climate change provisions and recovery after conflict and disaster situations. It will report its conclusions to the UNDP's 20th anniversary conference in New York in September.

Olaf Kjorven, assistant administrator at UNDP, said in an interview with Yacout Info that in the case of natural disasters such as earthquakes, floods and tsunamis, countries are now in general more able to cope with these severe incidents globally because they were bettter prepared and had more experience with early warning systems and natural disaster preparedness. It is difficult to prepare for an event as violent and as a huge as earthquakes and hurricanes. However, the reality is that some countries have done very well such as the Phillipinnes and Bangladesh who were examples of countries that had learnt to live with severe flooding and significantly reduce fatalities. The general trend over the last twenty years has been a reduction of fatalities. In Cuba, for instance, there is far less likelihood of fatalities than in other parts of the Carribean. More work has to be done on making the infrastructure more reslient in the face of natural disasters. The point of this UNDP conference is to share the experience of how you go about putting in place the right kind of institutions which can help societies respond to these unfortunate events.

In response to a question about deserfication he said that the UNDP was working on problems associated with land degradation and deserfication problems. It is associated with not just what happens with an African environment and climate change which is induced by human activity but also land use patterns and issues of governance and economic policy. One cannot just talk about the weather patterns. People have a vital incentive to keep their land viable and to take care of it. We have commercial policies in place that stimulate agricultural production and land preservation. Malawi has had a very successful programme over the last few years providing subsidies to farmers with fertilisers which had an enormously positive effect. Land degradation is about many things and one has to work with these challenges including water supply. Africa is very rain dependent; if it rains too much or too little it can have an adverse effect. How to build that resilience in the agricultural sector so that they are less dependent on climatic conditions. If you are going to invest in irrigation you have to have a secure title to land so you come back to the society's values and legal system.

Responding to a question on China which is now a world leader, he said that UNDP has a huge programme in China, which is huge for them but not quite so large for a vast country and an enormous economy like China. UNDP provides service in the areas where they are needed. The Chinese experience is of course very different from say Africa. We concentrate on good governance and production issues. It is a huge country and we provide what services and advice we can.

Dirk Elsen is Chief Executive of the Netherlands Development Organisation SNV. He told Yacout Info that it emploies 1,500 people worldwide stationed in the 100 offices in around 43 developing countries in Africa and Asia and Latin America with 50 staff where he is based in the Netherlands. Their work is about capacity development, everyone has a different definition of what this is. The staff are basically advisers who work with clients in the developing world strengthening their capabilities. They work with local, municipal and national governments and the private sector, very often agricultural cooperatives. SNV's key strength is to bring the three groups together, government, private and public sector and civil society with what they have to offer as partners. They create solutions for development programmes, very much sectorally focused. Capacity development can sometimes seem too abstract and SNV do ask themselves the question "cappacity development for what ?" This has led them to focus their work on access to basic services and sanitation, renewable energy, and the generation of income and employment opportunities. They are aiming to achieve agricultural values based change and tourism and forestry.

SNV is very involved in water issues and water distribution and sanitation is one of the key services they are working on. They focus on drinking water solutions rather than general water issues. SNV's work is as advisors, they are not engineers so they do not design water systems but look at the governance of the sector and how they different actors play their part and howx they work together to achieve the best possible solutions. The water sector must be managed so that they get the water to the people they need it. Water projects need capital investment and it is not always easy to find the capital investment for sub national water projects.

SNV concentrates on the subnational level and most of their offices are subnational. They work in Sub Saharan Africa and Latin America. North Africa is a very promising area but they have not operated their traditionally because they need to go where development needs are greatest.

Regarding the conference, he felt that much that took place was very good but that in discussing capacity building it is essential to bring stakeholders to the table and the lack of local stake holders perhaps made the conference a little one sided. When he was moderating a session about the local level he asked who out of the audience was actually representing the local level. Out of 107 people only 3 raised their hand. He felt the audience neded to be more balanced. He also thought that over 30 per cent of the audience was UN. To encourage multipilicty as well as keeping the conference simple it needed a broader audience. It needed more stakeholders and the practioners needed the opportunity to bring their expertise to the discussion, otherwise the discussion could be too abstract.

He commended the work over many years by the UNDP organising in promoting discussion and focus on capacity building and putting it on the agenda which has been very fruitful.