New York – United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Administrator, Achim Steiner, and Russia’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Sergey Lavrov, today announced a US$30m replenishment of the Russia-UNDP Trust Fund for Development. 

In a virtual ceremony, Mr Steiner welcomed the significant contribution made by Russia, particularly in the time of COVID-19, a global health and development crisis that is revealing fragilities in systems around the world.

“The decision to replenish the Trust Fund comes at a time when increased international collaboration and stronger partnerships are critical, as the world tackles the unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic,” Mr Steiner said. “We need to work together to counter the pandemic’s tragic and ongoing health crisis, but also the longer term threat COVID19 poses to progress  towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals and scaling up our work to protect the planet and the world’s poor and vulnerable.”

Mr Lavrov reiterated Russia’s commitment to expanding its global development support and trust in UNDP to deliver on shared goals. He also noted that the replenished investment through UNDP will build on successes made, but also be expanded into more country programmes particularly to boost the economic stability of women and girls in developing nations. 

This latest funding allocation will go towards specific targets of socio-economic support, climate change adaptation, gender and youth empowerment. This is extremely timely as the world deals with the evolving impacts of COVID-19, which threaten to turn back the clock on development gains made since the adoption of the Sustainable Development Goals in 2015.

Since its establishment in 2015, the UNDP-Russia Trust Fund for Development has supported UNDP work in 30 programme countries worldwide. The Trust Fund has improved the livelihoods of 560,000 people with access to employment, clean water supplies, education and medical facilities.