About UNDP

A world of development experience

"The fact is that globalization, the global market economy delivers to the upper half; it doesn't really deliver to the poor people. In some cities in the developing world, you have 50 percent of young people unemployed. So the challenge is huge and we have to focus on it. "At the United Nations Development Programme, that's what we try to do. We try to find the right solutions, try to compare what worked in some places to what didn't work in other places, and build and bring capacity development to these countries...It is through democratic institutions, through participation, through people getting organized in democratic ways [that is] at the heart of the challenge. You have to have these institutions to accompany market development, to accompany what's happening in the technological and financial sphere, so that we indeed have a much more equitable and balanced human society." - Kemal Derviş, UNDP Administrator

UNDP is the UN's global development network, an organization advocating for change and connecting countries to knowledge, experience and resources to help people build a better life. We are on the ground in 166 countries, working with them on their own solutions to global and national development challenges. As they develop local capacity, they draw on the people of UNDP and our wide range of partners.

World leaders have pledged to achieve the Millennium Development Goals, including the overarching goal of cutting poverty in half by 2015. UNDP's network links and coordinates global and national efforts to reach these Goals. Our focus is helping countries build and share solutions to the challenges of:

• Democratic Governance
• Poverty Reduction
• Crisis Prevention and Recovery
• Environment and Energy
• HIV/AIDS

UNDP helps developing countries attract and use aid effectively. In all our activities, we encourage the protection of human rights and the empowerment of women.

The annual Human Development Report, commissioned by UNDP, focuses the global debate on key development issues, providing new measurement tools, innovative analysis and often controversial policy proposals. The global Report's analytical framework and inclusive approach carry over into regional, national and local Human Development Reports, also supported by UNDP.

In each country office, the UNDP Resident Representative normally also serves as the Resident Coordinator of development activities for the United Nations system as a whole. Through such coordination, UNDP seeks to ensure the most effective use of UN and international aid resources.