the Gulf region. However, these countries have yet to use renewable and efficiency measures to decrease oil production and see it rather as a way of extending their oil supply. This offers a window of opportunity for UNDP to increase its ambition and support economic diversification. In Latin America, vertical funds projects provide over two thirds of the total energy funding, constituting around 55 percent of the overall signature solution and 61 percent of other (non-core) resource funding. There is also an increase in government cost-sharing projects, in which Governments request UNDP support in building up domestic capacities for energy transition. More than 18 percent of the expenditures are covered by government cost sharing, mainly in contributions such as travel and daily subsistence allowances. More than 10 percent of funds are provided through local government cost sharing, not only in middle-income countries but also in LDCs, such as Burkina Faso and the United Republic of Tanzania. As mentioned in Chapter 4.3, there are significant revenue savings for governments from the transition to renewables or efficiency projects which form a promising area that UNDP could further leverage to encourage greater cost-sharing. In annual averages, the UNDP energy offer has accounted for a little less than $110 million in expenditures over the last three years, which puts it behind all other signature solutions except gender. For example, signature solution 1 on poverty has almost $2 billion in expenditures. The signature solution for energy receives the lowest amount of absolute funding from the core budget. These contrasts are particularly stark because energy is a capital- and funding-intensive sector (see table 3).
TABLE 3. Comparison of the share of regular (core) versus other resources (non-core) funding for UNDP signature solutions, 2018-2021
Signature solution Poverty Governance Resilience Sustainable environment Energy Gender
Core expenditure Non-core expenditure
Share of core financing in expenditure
$403,190,000
$5,380,000,000
7.5 percent
$404,290,000
$5,680,000,000
7.1 percent
$116,250,000
$879,530,000
13.2 percent
$84,510,000
$1,350,000,000
6.3 percent
$28,750,000
$295,080,000
9.7 percent
$31,450,000
$87,120,000
36.1 percent
Source: UNDP finance data, 2021
Chapter 4. FINDINGS
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