A/RES/56/201 effectiveness of the operational activities for development of the United Nations system and of the functioning of the United Nations development system at the country level, and to submit to the Economic and Social Council, at its substantive session of 2002, in consultation with Member States and on the basis of the experience acquired with the impact evaluation studies, suggestions on how to strengthen the modalities and enhance the approach for such an assessment, in particular in the areas identified in the present resolution; 54. Reiterates the need for recipient Governments concerned to be fully and effectively involved in the assessment of the effectiveness of the operational activities for development of the United Nations system; 55. Requests the United Nations system at the country level to support those Governments that intend to undertake capacity-building impact evaluations themselves, as and when required; 56. Reiterates the need for the United Nations system to strengthen its efforts, in consultation with recipient countries, to ensure that the lessons learned from both monitoring and evaluation exercises are systematically applied to programming processes at the operational level and that evaluation criteria are built into all projects and programmes at their design stage, requests the SecretaryGeneral to carry out an impartial and independent assessment of the extent to which the United Nations funds, programmes and agencies at the field level learn lessons from their evaluations and to formulate proposals on how to improve the feed-back mechanisms at the field level, and requests the Secretary-General to report to the Economic and Social Council at its substantive session of 2003 in this regard; VI Simplification and harmonization of rules and procedures 57. Reaffirms that simplification and harmonization of procedures, as well as their decentralization, should support improved organizational efficiency and effectiveness and be responsive to the needs of recipient countries; 58. Notes the progress achieved in the harmonization of programming cycles, the harmonization of the programme approval process and the simplification and harmonization of rules and procedures, with the assistance of the United Nations Development Group, and calls upon the funds, programmes and specialized agencies of the United Nations system to continue to improve coordination efforts by taking further steps to enhance and ensure the sustainability of that process; 59. Emphasizes that the simplification and harmonization of rules and procedures should aim at reducing, where appropriate, the complexities and diversity of requirements, which still place an enormous burden on the recipient countries through high transaction costs, and that innovations in this area should achieve, in their implementation, the objective of reducing the administrative and financial costs to the recipient country as well as to the United Nations system; 60. Requests the funds, programmes and specialized agencies of the United Nations system to examine ways to simplify further their rules and procedures and, in this context, to accord the issue of simplification and harmonization high priority and to take concrete steps in the following areas: the decentralization and delegation of authority; the financial regulations; the procedures for implementing programmes and projects and, in particular, the requirements in terms of monitoring and reporting; the common shared services at country offices; and the recruitment, training and remuneration of national project personnel; 9