Social and Environmental Compliance Unit

The UNDP is the United Nations’ (UN) international development agency. It was established in 1965 and has a mission of reducing poverty through sustainable development. It has its headquarters in New York but primarily works through Country Offices in over 177 countries and territories around the world. It supports development projects and programs that are directly-implemented by UNDP or that are implemented through project partners (governments, other UN agencies, NGOs, companies, also known as “implementing partners”).

The UNDP’s accountability mechanism has two parts: 1) The Social and Environmental Compliance Unit (SECU); and 2) The Stakeholder Response Mechanism (SRM).

SECU and SRM became operational on 1 January 2015. SECU is located within the Office of Audit and Investigations (OAI) at UNDP Headquarters. SRM also has staff at UNDP Headquarters, but it primarily operates through designated representatives in UNDP Country Offices. SRM and SECU each have different functions: SRM offers problem-solving; while SECU offers compliance review and produces advisory notes.

Problem-Solving – SRM helps project-affected people to attempt to resolve their concerns about the social and environmental impacts of UNDP-supported projects directly with UNDP and its project partners.

Compliance Review – SECU investigates UNDP’s compliance with its social and environmental commitments and recommends measures to address any non-compliance.

Advisory Notes – SECU can also provide Advisory Notes to the UNDP Administrator regarding social and environmental issues.

Affected people can attempt to resolve their concerns through SRM, can ask SECU to pursue a compliance review, or they can ask to use both functions.