About UNDP in Cyprus

The leaders of the two communities in Cyprus inaugurate the Limnitis/Yesilirmak crossing in October 2010.

Since 1964, there has been a UN presence in Cyprus. The United Nations began providing technical assistance to Cyprus in the early 1960s and shortly after the island got independence. In those days this was done through the United Nations Expanded Programme of Technical Assistance.

In 1966 the United Nations Development Programme opened a country office in Cyprus. This assistance mainly focused on economic development in agriculture, industry, fisheries and infrastructure. After the events of 1974 UNDP’s operations were limited to certain parts of the island.

In the late 1970s the first inter-communal initiative was launched with a project aimed at controlling animal disease, which affected livestock across Cyprus. This was followed by the establishment of the Nicosia Master Plan, in which UNDP worked with the leaders of Nicosia’s Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot communities, to develop and implement projects that benefited all the inhabitants of the capital city. In the early 1990s negotiations started for Cyprus to become a net donor.

In March 1997 the UNDP country office was formally closed. In the same year, the UN’s bi-communal activities began with UNHCR.

In 1998 and this was taken over by UNDP. The Bi-communal Development Programme (BDP), which continued until 2005 and implemented by UNOPS, spent some 67 million USD on bi-communal activities with the aim to build cooperation and understanding between Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots.

In 2001, UNDP became responsible for the implementation of the European Union (EU) funded Programme “Partnership for the Future (PFF)” to continue work on the Nicosia Master Plan and support infrastructure development.

In 2005 Action for Co-operation and Trust, was established under the direct management of UNDP with funding mainly from the US Agency for International Development to continue peacebuilding work established under the Bi-communal Development Programme. The UNDP-ACT programme closed in March 2016.

UNDP Partnership for the Future

Since 2001, the European Union funded Partnership for the Future Programme (UNDP-PFF) aims at contributing to the peace and confidence building process in Cyprus through different levels of interventions.

UNDP-PFF started working in Cyprus with a bi-communal programme focusing on the rehabilitation of Old Nicosia in partnership with the Nicosia Master Plan. In 2004 the programme was extended to the other main cities of Famagusta and Kyrenia. As of 2006 UNDP-PFF operates under the European Union Aid Programme for the Turkish Cypriot Community focusing on the social and economic development of the Turkish Cypriot community through urban upgrading and private sector development projects.

In parallel to these projects, UNDP-PFF has also been providing support to the United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS) and the United Nations Peace Keeping Force in Cyprus (UNFICYP) in facilitating the demining of the buffer zone and opening of new civilian crossings.

In recent years UNDP-PFF's focus has returned to bi-communal projects facilitating access to wastewater services to both communities of Nicosia through the project for the New Nicosia Waste Water Treatment Plant, support to the Technical Committee on Cultural Heritage for the preservation and promotion of the immovable cultural heritage of Cyprus, and providing operational support to the Committee of Missing Persons in Cyprus (CMP). 

More details on UNDP-PFF work in Cyprus can be found here

UNDP Action for Cooperation and Trust 

Programme closed as of March 2016.

Collectively, the USAID-funded UNDP programmes (BDP, UNDP-ACT) have reached more than a hundred thousand Cypriots island-wide through bi-communal initiatives that seek to strengthen inter-communal relations and trust by creating opportunities for civil society to participate in the reconciliation process and fostering an environment conducive to inter-communal cooperation.

Building upon previous bi-communal activities, UNDP-ACT succeeded the USAID-funded Bi-communal Development Programme (BDP) which had begun in 1998. Since 2005 the ACT programme has established a niche within the reconciliation process in Cyprus and targets the capacity of civil society to feed into the wider process of building trust between the two communities.

UNDP-ACT refined the approach to citizen peace building in Cyprus, moving gradually from many small projects aimed at showing that inter-communal cooperation was possible, to a few large thematic initiatives which sought to leverage profound changes in societal thinking on the Cyprus conflict.

Today the ACT programme is focussing on developing innovative tools for supporting the peace process with an emphasis on demonstrating the benefits of a settlement.

The cohesion of UNDP projects in Cyprus is ensured by the overall guidance and management of UNDP Regional Bureau for Europe and CIS (RBEC).

A Project Steering Committee is established at the start of all projects and composed of Donors, UNDP and in most cases by the beneficiaries.
The Programme Steering Committee meets on regular basis to review priorities and progress towards expected results. Additional meetings are  convened as required to allow for timely approval of projects submitted and in response to requests for proposals.

The Programme Steering Committee undertakes the main following functions:

1. To review and provide guidance on the overall direction of the programme and its choice of priority themes and sectors;
2. To review progress towards the expected results and, where problems have been identified, to provide recommendations for corrective action;
3. To approve specific initiatives for funding project as well as reallocations of funs under the programme.
   

UNDP is responsible for preparing a brief presentation to the Steering Committee on the current status of the projects, on the results obtained through programme activities as well as propose new projects for review and approval. This presentation is followed by discussions,  recommendations and decisions for adjustments  to programme/project priorities or for improving the impact and effectiveness of the activities under implementation.