74 . MOPAN 2017-18 ASSESSMENTS . UNITED NATIONS RELIEF AND WORKS AGENCY FOR PALESTINE REFUGEES IN THE NEAR EAST MI 4.2 Analysis Source document The major issue on budgeting and expenditure facing UNRWA is the persistent problems with the unreliability and unpredictability of revenue sources available to the Agency to deliver its core mandate to Palestine refugees in its five fields of operation. UNRWA undertakes detailed financial monitoring and reporting. This is consistent with an organisation that must practice very tight cash flow management. There is no evidence of institutionally agreed margins on disbursement rates or tracking against the same. There is some evidence of UNRWA being clear on the explanations for variances between planned expenditure and actual expenditure. For example, the Annual Operational Report for 2016 details how due to funding constraints; (i) the school feeding programme was not implemented, and complementary food assistance could not be provided for pregnant women and children under the 3,6,8, 10, 11,44 age of 2, (ii) UNRWA was unable to implement the emergency cash assistance programme in Gaza. There is evidence of UNRWA making, conveying and holding to difficult choices relating to expenditure and the agency ensuring the implementation of cost reduction and control in its programme budget. Funding shortfalls are a major factor. The Programme Budget for 2016-17 referred to how ‘At present, the SSNP remains severely underfunded and locked into a food distribution programme combined with ineffective amounts of cash distribution’. The Budget document also refers to how progress in rehabilitating shelters and meeting annual targets [in Syria Field] has been challenging due to financial constraints, as the ICIP programme is driven by project funding, and the security situation in Syria, which precludes the rehabilitation of shelters in that field. MI 4.2 Evidence confidence High confidence MI 4.3: Principles of results-based budgeting applied Score Overall MI Rating Satisfactory Overall MI score 3 Element 1: The most recent organisational budget clearly aligns financial resources with strategic objectives/intended results of the current Strategic Plan Element 2: A budget document is available which provides clear costings for the achievement of each management result Element 3: Systems are available and used to track costs from activity through to result (outcome) Element 4: There is evidence of improved costing of management and development results in budget documents reviewed over time (evidence of building a better system) MI 4.3 Analysis 3 3 3 3 Source document The 2016-17 Programme Budget aligns financial resources with strategic objectives - resource requirements are specified by objective and by category of expenditure with the strategic objectives of the MTS 2016-21. These are presented at a high level (education etc.) in the Blue book and in more detail in UNRWA’s budget documents thereby providing some basis for detailed costings for the achievement of each management result. UNRWA aims to reach higher cost effectiveness through results-based budgeting and human resources management and has invested in systems to support this; REACH in 2015 and the results-based monitoring system in 2017. 1, 2, 6, 8, 43, 44, 65