UNDP first launched Institutional and Context Analysis (ICA) as an approach to support country-level programming in 2012, largely based on methodologies developed by the World Bank and DFID.  Originally conceived to help UNDP staff take politics into account in their programming work, the main objective of the first analyses done based on the ICA methodology was to help development practitioners deliver on their commitments to national partners and donors to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).  As such, an ICA was primarily envisioned as an input to understanding how different actors in society, who are subject to an assortment of incentives and constraints, shaped the likelihood of programme success.

Following the adoption of the Sustainable Development Goals in 2015, the United Nations Development Group (UNDG) has adopted a common approach to supporting the 2030 Agenda dubbed MAPS – Mainstreaming, Acceleration and Policy Support.  While Mainstreaming helps landing the SDGs at country level, Acceleration helps identify possible bottlenecks in policy implementation and address the complex interrelations underlying sustainable development in order to craft possible solutions to competing priorities by stakeholders; Policy Support provides national partners with access to expertise across the UN System’s various specialized areas.

The present Guidance Note has been designed as a tool under Acceleration in the context of MAPS and its purpose is to serve as a resource for UN agencies and their national partners to identify elements that may help boost the success of policy implementation or undermine it.   It builds on lessons learned from the application of the ICA approach to country programming as well as on international experience with the use of similar analytical frameworks over the past decade.

Thus, the term ‘institutional and context analysis’ has been revised and for the purposes of this Guidance Note, it refers “an analysis that focuses on political and institutional factors in a given country and how these may have a positive or negative impact on the implementation of policies for the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals.”