Feb. 3, 2010---Mr. Juha Uitto, Deputy Director of Evaluation Office of UNDP headed a delegation to IPRCC, for evaluating the contribution and experience of UNDP in addressing China’s social, economic and environmental challenges in the past years. The entourage includes Prof. Chen Zhaoying, Deputy Director-General of National Center for Science and Technology Evaluation (NCSTE), Ministry of Science and Technology of China, which is commissioned for the UNDP evaluation. Director General of IPRCC, Wu Zhong met the delegation.

Director Wu began by approving the important role that UNDP has played in poverty reduction and rural development in China. He pointed out that many UNDP’s projects have gone deeply into China’s rural communities. Compared to many other international agencies, UNDP has secured a better understanding on China’s development conditions. In the past five years, the Chinese government has been working closely with UNDP China, and UNDP’s rich experience related has also been adopted in the formulation of China’s national development strategy. Currently, China still faces the huge challenge of mass poverty, and certainly still needs the constant support of international organizations including the financial support and the injection of advanced development approaches. If UNDP could provide more financial resources, China’s poverty reduction and development projects will be more efficient. While talking of the specific working approaches of UNDP, Director Wu suggested that the agencies in China for implementing the relevant UNDP’s projects should be offered more right and flexibility in order to ensure the smooth operation of the projects.

Director Wu briefly introduced the founding background of IPRCC and its major functions and development orientation. He also expressed his great appreciation to UNDP for bringing IPRCC into the broad international network. He would hope IPRCC to be a more internationalized agency in the sphere of poverty reduction and development with the constant support of UNDP.

Mr. Uitto appreciated Director Wu’s approval of UNDP. Meanwhile, he expressed that the evaluation office will finish the evaluation report as soon as possible and incorporate it into the UNDP China Program (2011-2015) with the recommendation of relevant Chinese government agencies.