UN Development Program

The Audacity of Change: A Specific Example of How the UN Can Still Make a Difference

March 23, 2021

GENEVA — One of the quiet pleasures of life is an early-morning cappuccino in the company of a good newspaper. That was before Covid-19 came along. The pandemic and resulting disruption of newspaper deliveries and shuttering of cafes has obliged me to suspend my habits of a lifetime. Pending the resumption of normal service, …

Development, Sustainable Development Goals, WORLDVIEWS

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COVID-19

Wanted: Small Investors to Boost Development Money Beyond Banks

August 31, 2020

by Barbara Crossette

For nearly two years, an international group of 17 specialists on the finance frontier have been connecting digital technologies to new sources of money for the faltering Sustainable Development Goals. On Aug. 26, they unveiled an ambitious report on what can be done when traditional pools of capital are broadened and deepened by including …

Covid-19, Development

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COVID-19

In Latin America, Panama Battles the Coronavirus Between Two Oceans

June 11, 2020

by Isabel Saint Malo

PANAMA CITY, Panama — March 2 marked the beginning of the school year in Panama, when about a million students, a quarter of the population, headed for school. One week had passed when the first Covid-19 case was reported, a national emergency was declared and full lockdown began. My husband and I live with …

Covid-19, Latin America

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WORLDVIEWS

Can UN Development Be Reformed? Not at This Rate

January 6, 2020

by Stephen Browne

GENEVA — Like his predecessors, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres has been pushing a reform program to help the organization adjust to the demands of contemporary global governance. Over nearly 75 years, the UN has innovated and adapted. At first, humanitarian assistance was not envisaged to go beyond the needs of people displaced by …

Development, WORLDVIEWS

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A Hindu-Muslim Friendship That Helped Shape How the World Measured Poverty

March 6, 2018

by Barbara Crossette

They were two young men studying at Cambridge University when they met in the wake of the bloody Partition of British India. One was a Kashmiri-born Muslim and the other a Hindu-born Bengali. But the two, Mahbub ul Haq of Pakistan and Amartya Sen from India, soon formed an intellectual bond and deep friendship. …

Asia, Development

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WORLDVIEWS

Advice to António Guterres: A Leaner UN Could Be a Better UN

March 27, 2017

by Stephen Browne and Thomas G. Weiss

GENEVA — Whether or not he is a fan of Chinese characters, António Guterres will have to discover the double meaning of a crisis as opportunity. United Nations corridors on First Avenue in New York are buzzing with anxiety about the possibility of impending cuts in funding from the United States, with hints from …

Secretary-General, US-UN Relations, WORLDVIEWS

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WORLDVIEWS

Ironing Out the Kinks in the UN’s New Human-Rights Initiative

August 12, 2015

by Gerrit Kurtz

BERLIN — In December 2013, Jan Eliasson, the United Nations deputy secretary-general, went on a selling spree. In a series of briefings, he presented a new initiative to UN member states and to the rest of the world. In his address to the General Assembly, Eliasson said, not mincing words: “In improving the way …

WORLDVIEWS

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Ameerah Haq: ‘I’ve Had a Great Run — 40 Years’

December 15, 2014

by Barbara Crossette

Ameerah Haq, who will serve as vice chair of Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s newly appointed high-level panel reviewing United Nations peace operations, has strong views on putting torn countries back together. Haq, a UN official about to retire after nearly four decades in the organization, began her career in the farming fields and villages of …

Peace and Security, Security Council, UN Peacekeeping, Women

10 Comments

WORLDVIEWS

The Business and Politics of Good Samaritans

March 30, 2013

by Thomas G. Weiss

“Humanitarian” and “business” are juxtaposed in the title of my new book, “Humanitarian Business,” for two reasons: provocation and accuracy. It jars those who idealize the humanitarian enterprise because the adjective has uncontested positive connotations while the noun is associated with wheeling and dealing and thus at odds with the self-image of true believers. …

Humanitarian Aid, WORLDVIEWS

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Two Faces of Burma Coming to New York

August 22, 2012

by Barbara Crossette

It may have been a coincidence or maybe not. When the 67th United Nations General Assembly session opens in New York in mid-September, the president of Burma, Thein Sein, is expected to speak in what is still called, quaintly, the “general debate.” At almost the same time, Aung San Suu Kyi, the Nobel Peace …

Asia, Development, Human Rights

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SPECIAL REPORT

How Bad Is It? The UN Development System Needs an Overhaul

July 17, 2012

by Dulcie Leimbach

The clamor for United Nations reform has not stopped since its first days in 1945. Although ideas for changing the UN rise and fall each year, the newest calls for an overhaul involve development, one of the largest sectors of the world body’s system. With a Kafkaesque bureaucracy consisting of at least 30 agencies …

Development, Special Report

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MILLENNIUM GOALS

A Top Economist Faults UNDP for Outmoded Policies

May 22, 2012

by Barbara Crossette

In a broadside against the United Nations Development Program, Jagdish Bhagwati, professor of economics at Columbia University and an adviser to the government of India and numerous international bodies, argues that the UN’s premier agency has declined in staff quality as it clings to outdated policies that actually harm poor countries. At the heart …

Development

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Easing Afghan Women’s Burdens With a Hotline

April 19, 2012

by Jenny Marc

Sanjar Qiam can readily recite examples of domestic abuse in his country, Afghanistan. “Just last week we received a call from neighbors,” Qiam, the director of a Kabul-based communications business, Gandeeray, recalled in a phone interview from his home in London, where he moved a few months ago. “‘There is a family,’ they said. …