UN development system
- Max-Otto Baumann
- • December 8, 2021
The reform of the United Nations development system has been a key project of Secretary-General António Guterres’s first term. Bold changes were planned to reposition the system to meet the needs of the 2030 Agenda — the Sustainable Development…
- Categories: Development, WORLDVIEWS
- Stephen Browne
- • January 6, 2020
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…
- Categories: Development, SDGs, WORLDVIEWS
- Barbara Crossette
- • January 28, 2019
As the first effects of Secretary-General António Guterres’s ambitious organizational reform plans become apparent, former and current officials of the United Nations Development Program see the future of the internationally influential agency as uncertain if not in peril. Fears…
- Categories: Development, Health and Population, SDGs
- Max-Otto Baumann
- • April 25, 2018
BONN, Germany —Â Member states of the United Nations are now negotiating reform proposals for the world body’s development system. In the latest draft resolution, they welcome the secretary-general’s proposal for “advancing common business operations” and “request” for their “implementation,”…
- Categories: Development, WORLDVIEWS
- Bertrand G. Ramcharan
- • September 26, 2017
Secretary-General António Guterres, encouraged by the United States, has embarked on new reforms, so it is appropriate to scrutinize their policy content. Are they meaningful or are they hollow? With all due respect to the secretary-general of the United…
- Categories: Secretary-General, US Foreign Relations, US-UN Relations, WORLDVIEWS
- Bertrand G. Ramcharan
- • August 22, 2017
Secretary-General António Guterres has set about modernizing some sectors of the United Nations and made impassioned statements about the need to protect human rights. But beyond rhetoric, so far there has been no indication of his modernizing the human-rights…
- Categories: Human Rights, Secretary-General, WORLDVIEWS
- Dulcie Leimbach
- • July 17, 2017
António Guterres just laid out his first major reform plan for the United Nations through a report presenting concrete suggestions embedded in wonky language and hyperbole. One recommendation that stands out is the emphasis by Guterres, the secretary-general, to…
- Categories: Nikki Haley Watch, Secretary-General, US-UN Relations
- Helmut Volger
- • April 19, 2015
The United Nations is now discussing in a broad consultation process the sustainable development goals: a new universal set of ambitions for economic and social development, made up of targets and indicators that all countries are expected to use…
- Stephen Browne  and Thomas G. Weiss
- • August 22, 2014
One year ago, the report of a high-level panel of world leaders and renowned development specialists proposed 12 goals and 50 indicators for the United Nation’s post-2015 agenda. These were already unwieldy numbers, but after a year and a…
- Categories: Development
- Stephen Browne  and Thomas G. Weiss
- • June 10, 2014
GENEVA — For those with longer memories, the latest dip in resources for the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and the staff cutbacks and restructuring announced by its administrator, Helen Clark, in May are merely the onset of another…
- Categories: WORLDVIEWS
- Barbara Crossette
- • May 26, 2014
An unusual survey of 3,400 people worldwide who know the United Nations has found strong support for some basic rethinking over the next decade on the organization’s work in development. Among the recommendations, over two-thirds of respondents suggested adding…
- Categories: Development
- Leelananda De Silva
- • November 14, 2013
The United Nations development system is part of the new global order emerging in the 21st century. But interdependence has brought changes. Earlier international relations addressed issues in intergovernmental relations. National political, economic, social and environmental issues were largely…
- Categories: Development
- Stephen Browne  and Thomas G. Weiss
- • September 2, 2013
“If we want things to change, some things will have to stay as they are.” This inversion of Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa‘s aphorism summarizes a key finding of a recent global survey on the future development goals. A select…
- Categories: Development
- Kishore Mahbubani
- • July 27, 2013
Institutions of global governance are weak by design not default. As Singapore’s permanent representative in New York, I encountered senior members of the American establishment who lamented the United Nations’ poor condition. The explanation was the domination by the…
- Categories: Development, UN Agencies, US-UN Relations
- Ramesh Thakur
- • June 11, 2013
The Group of 20 nations is more capable of replicating development success models than the United Nations manages to do within its own development ranks, representing a major challenge to the UN system and its second-most important agenda item…
- Categories: Development
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