UNDP

• June 16, 2014

Ban Ki-moon, the United Nations secretary-general, has appointed at least a dozen new people to high-level positions — including five women — primarily in Africa in the last few months, while the organization also loses some executives. Three new force commanders have been named for various peacekeeping missions as well. At Unicef, Anthony Lake, …

GOINGS-ON

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WORLDVIEWS

The UN Development Program: A New Crisis or a New Opportunity?

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 cycle, just in time for the agency’s 50th anniversary but part of its history since …

WORLDVIEWS

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Is a Better UN System Possible? Global Experts Respond to an Independent Survey

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 more nongovernmental representatives to governing bodies and better consolidating both organizational representation and programs in …

Development

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The UN Has Lost the Aid-Effectiveness Race: What Is to Be Done?

Robert Piocciotto

• March 5, 2014

Recent events have confirmed that the United Nations has a deep reservoir of good will worldwide. But its reputation is undermined by the ineffectiveness of its development assistance. UN agencies could improve their performance by implementing effective evaluations. However, the UN cannot be judged solely on the basis of its development assistance because the …

Development, Humanitarian Aid

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Unraveling Sexual Violence in Costa Rica and Throughout Latin America

Ryan Villarreal

• January 8, 2014

For the past three decades, Costa Rica has carried out progressive steps to reduce violence against women, a major inhibitor of human and economic development in the country and throughout Latin America. While the issue has garnered more attention among the general public in recent years, it remains intertwined in the fabric of Latin …

Gender Violence, Latin America, UN Agencies, Women

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Where’s the Money? Funds for Millennium Development Goals Lag

Alice Speri

• September 25, 2013

With 827 days to go until the 2015 deadline for the Millennium Development Goals — the United Nations’ flagship agenda for global development — the buzzword at the General Assembly’s annual opening debate in New York this week was “acceleration.” A clear sense of urgency dominated many talks, particularly as the world body prepares to …

Africa, Asia, Development, General Assembly, Health and Population

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The UN Development Program Should Revive What It Does Best

Craig N. Murphy and Stephen Browne

• August 22, 2013

Constant reform has characterized the United Nations Development Program throughout its existence, say the authors of two recent books on the agency. Change bespeaks an organization ready to adapt but also fundamentally uncertain about its proper role. It teeters between two sets of tensions. The first tension is between being both coordinator and competitor …

Development, UN Agencies

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Unido: What Does Its Future Hold?

Stephen Browne

• August 7, 2013

At the end of 2012, Britain withdrew its membership from the United Nations Industrial Development Organization, or Unido, the most recent of several major donor countries (including the United States and Canada) to do so. Although it has had strong support from many developing countries, Unido has for many years been regarded with skepticism …

Development, UN Agencies

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Poverty Experts Want New Thinking on Development Goals

Barbara Crossette

• June 3, 2013

If 2015 comes and goes with a significant number of Millennium Development Goals failing to meet their targets, questions will abound over whom or what to blame. There will also be skepticism over reports that a few of the goals have already been met with 100 percent success. In general, specialists in development have …

Africa, Asia, Development, General Assembly, Women

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SPECIAL REPORT

Signals of Greater Times Buoy Developing Nations

Barbara Crossette

• March 13, 2013

For the developing world, the news in the 2013 United Nations Human Development Report is almost all good. (More on that “almost” later.) The title of the report, The Rise of the South: Human Progress in a Diverse World, sets the tone. New players with global clout, increased South-South trade and investment, strengthening regional …

Africa, Asia, Development, Health and Population, Millennium Goals, Special Report

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The Glory of Self-Learning, Discovered by Children in India

Tala Dowlatshahi

• February 6, 2013

Imagine a new world of innovative, inexpensive and successful learning, where dusty streets in rural towns in developing countries are lined with self-powered computer kiosks and children from poor neighborhoods have the same ability to work with new technology as children in richer areas do. That dynamic is the goal of new education policies …

Asia, Education

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The New Normal? Severe Weather Battering Cities

Amy Lieberman

• November 14, 2012

Latin America and the Caribbean have always faced the threat of hurricane intensely, but with new weather extremes related to climate change occurring amid growing urban populations, the lethal mix is bound to cause more damage and deaths every year. Urban planners are not even close to being prepared. Consider the recent havoc …

Climate and Environment

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In the Mideast, Women’s Hopes Give Way to Harsh Realities

Barbara Crossette

• November 1, 2012

Overshadowed by daily reports from a horrific war in Syria, lingering violence in Libya and sporadic protests in Egypt and other regional nations, a struggle to salvage and advance the rights of women caught up in the revolutions of the Arab Spring is reaching a crucial stage. Women who joined men in the streets, …

Middle East, Women

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MILLENNIUM GOALS

A Top Economist Faults UNDP for Outmoded Policies

Barbara Crossette

• May 22, 2012

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 …