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Publié sur février 13, 2023

Supporting Moldova to address energy and food crises


UN Moldova helps to finds solutions to address the impact of the war in Ukraine on local population.

As the Ukraine crisis is impacting all sectors, it is affecting the whole of Moldova and nearly every aspect of social and economic life. In order to assist the country in the mitigation and response measures, the UN Moldova has developed an offer in May 2022 for assistance. One of the actions under this Offer was supported by the Joint SDG Fund.

Under the guidance of the Resident Coordinator Office, ILO, UNDP and FAO supported the government to design new policies and measures to help business, small farmers and the general population to cope with the impact of the food and energy costs increase.  

“Multiple crises that our country is facing in the last months have definitely put pressure and excessive burden on the Government capacities, particularly on human resources. Within the UN Joint Programme for Sustainable Development we managed to improve our internal capacity and ensure a well-functioning coordination between the State Chancellery and relevant line ministries in the process of preparing strategic structural reforms. This helped to develop immediate, medium and long-term solutions and identify measures to respond to energy and food crises, aimed at supporting Moldova’s citizens and refugees alike“, - mentioned Natalia Cristian, Senior Adviser, State Chancellery of the Republic of Moldova.

The Development Emergency Modality Joint Programme launched in 2022 delivered tangible results.

Particularly, with the support of ILO the Government adopted new regulations regarding unification of the minimum wage in the private and public sectors of the economy, and subsequently increased its amount to 3,500 lei. According to a recent ILO study, every fifth employee in the private sector of Moldova receives a salary equivalent to the minimum wage, or very close to it. For many of these people the minimum wage is one of a few sources for their existence.

Supporting farmers amidst economic crisis, incentivizing agricultural productivity growth and ensuring population’s resilience to food and nutrition insecurity were amongst other activities implemented by UNDP and FAO under the Joint Programme. Critical immediate measures were identified to support domestic farmers in coping with high input prices and agricultural drought. Furthermore, solutions were proposed for better evidence of small farm holders and agricultural crops they produce, as well as for better forecasting of agricultural output in the context of unfavourable weather conditions.

Public Administration Reform is essential for Moldova on its way towards accession to the European Union as the country committed itself to implement structural reforms while ensuring efficiency and effectiveness of its governing structures. To this end, UNDP conducted a comprehensive review of reform options aimed at reshaping administrative-territorial division and assessed decentralization of administrative functions that led to substantive recommendations proposed under the upcoming reform.

At the same time, Moldova’s Government benefitted from high calibre advisory support on the assessment of the magnitude of energy security risks, identification of mitigation measures and development of options to diversify energy sources, as well as upgrading of in-country energy infrastructure based on renewables and incentivizing energy efficiency. The findings under development finance assessment in the field of climate change underpinned recommendations regarding identification of financing opportunities to address climate-related issues.

Last, but not the least, regulatory impact analysis has been conducted to improve business environment through deregulation, simplification, digitization and reduction of bureaucratic procedures.

The UN Joint Programme implemented by ILO, UNDP and FAO in partnership with the State Chancellery and line ministries is financed through the UN Joint SDG Fund and it amounts to 230.000 USD. The implementation period of the Programme was July – December 2022.