Publications
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Policy Support
Governance for the Future: Democracy and Development in the Least Developed Countries
This report addresses the relevance of democratic governance for poverty reduction and the achievement of development goals in the most vulnerable of all the world's countries, the Least Developed Countries (LDCs). It includes country profiles for the 50 LDCs with extensive economic, social, and governance indicators. Also in French
A Handbook on Working With Political Parties
Political parties are a keystone of democratic governance. They provide a structure for political participation; serve as a training ground for political leadership; and transform social interests into public policy. The question for development practitioners is how best to work with political parties in addressing the challenges they face. UNDP’s Democratic Governance Group has created A Handbook on Working with Political Parties to help our field offices and partners to address questions regarding assistance to political parties. Also in Arabic
A Users’ Guide to Measuring Corruption
A Users' Guide to Measuring Corruption, jointly produced by UNDP and Global Integrity, is one of the first attempts to explore how best to use existing tools to measure what is increasingly viewed as one of the major impediments to development: corruption. Also in Spanish, and French
Governance Indicators: A Users' Guide (2nd Edition)
This second edition of the Users’ Guide includes several new indicator sources and an updated version of those that were featured in the first edition. Also in Spanish, French, and Arabic
Hard copies: English, French, Spanish, Arabic
Measuring Democratic Governance: A Framework for selecting pro-poor and gender sensitive indicators
By presenting methods for generating pro-poor gender sensitive indicators, this framework assists policy-makers monitor and evaluate democratic governance at the country level
Democracy in Latin America
By combining quantitative indicators and detailed interviews with in-depth surveys and an on-going dialogue with a cross-section of prominent leaders and opinion formers across the region, the Report provides a comprehensive analysis of the state of democracy in Latin America. Also in Spanish and Portuguese
UNDP's Engagement with Political Parties
Intended for UNDP democratic governance practitioners, this report analyses and summarizes a mapping of UNDP's engagement with political parties that was conducted in October 2003 and updated in May 2005. The information contained in the mapping is indicative rather than exhaustive and reflects the various ways UNDP Country Offices are currently working and engaging with political parties. The mapping will serve as a key reference for informing the development of UNDP’s corporate policies and practices concerning political parties.
Parliamentary Development
Engaging Parliaments in the Millennium Development Goals: a key part of National MDG strategies
An important resource for parliamentarians who are trying through their daily work to promote the MDGs and give effect to policies and legislation that will help their country to achieve the MDGs, the origins of this publication lie in dialogue that took place between the Secretariat of the National Assembly of Vietnam and UNDP in 2004. This publication also benefits from contributions from UNDP specialists from around the world as shared through UNDP’s global networks, from a paper commissioned by UNDP Vietnam from Alicia Philips-Mandaville, then of the National Democratic Institute, and from contributions made by Mrs. Eveline Herfkens, the UN Secretary General’s Executive Coordinator for the Millennium Campaign.
Fast Facts on Parliamentary Development - How UNDP Supports Parliaments
Outlines the key points of UNDP's parliamentary development activities, addressing both regional and thematic efforts. Reference documentation and additional information on subjects addressed. Links are provided to other useful websites. Also available in French
- Concept Paper on "Legislatures and Good Governance"
This paper is intended to detail the conceptual issues of the role of legislatures in good governance. It explains what parliaments do, how they do it, and how structure and party systems may influence parliamentary behaviour. Other areas explored include problems faced by parliaments, organizations involved in the parliamentary sector, examples of legislative development activities, and lessons learned.
Short Technical Papers
Intended to provide governance practitioners with a basic understanding of parliamentary systems, each paper includes a list of resources and institutions to contact for further assistance.
Electoral Systems
UNDP
Electoral Assistance Implementation Guide
Electoral assistance is about more than supporting an election event.
Ideally, such support should be embedded in a democratic governance
strategy and provided throughout the ‘electoral cycle’.
UNDP has launched a new publication: the UNDP Electoral Assistance Implementation
Guide providing the ‘how to’ fundamentals of planning and
implementing electoral assistance using the concept of the electoral
cycle, as well as specific guidance on project design, resources, partnerships,
procurement, evaluation and other areas. Whilst this is designed as
a guide for UNDP staff, others can learn from UNDP’s approach
and access a wealth of resources on planning, formulating, implementing
and monitoring electoral assistance.
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UNDP and Electoral Systems and Processes
This "fast facts" brochure outlines the key points of UNDP's electoral systems and processes activities, addressing both regional and thematic efforts. Reference documentation and additional information on subjects addressed. Links are provided to other useful websites.
Getting to the CORE: A Global Survey on the Cost of Registration and Elections
Produced by the UNDP and IFES, this step-by-step guide to election processes around the world explains what measures need to be in place, from voter registration to ballot-box security, and at what price, before the first ballot is cast. This study is intended to expand upon and complement research into election budgeting and financing issues that were discussed in Electoral Management Bodies as Institutions of Governance, published by UNDP.
Electoral Management Bodies as Institutions of Governance
This paper focuses on the institutional dimensions of strengthening electoral systems and grapples with issues related to electoral management bodies as institutions of governance. Through a taxonomy that classifies 148 countries according to the type of electoral administration, it argues that electoral management bodies worldwide are increasingly both permanent and independent of the executive branch of government and that this type of institutional structure proves more cost-effective than ad-hoc or temporary electoral bodies. Special attention is placed on the role and challenges of electoral management bodies in "third wave" democracies vis-à-vis the experience in older and more established democracies.
ESSENTIALS: Electoral Assistance
The ESSENTIALS series, published by UNDP's Evaluation office, is designed to provide UNDP country offices and headquarters easy access to lessons learned from evaluations. This issue summarizes and synthesizes lessons learned and suggestions made by UNDP and other development agencies in the area of electoral assistance. Also available in Spanish and French
- UNDP and Electoral Assistance: 10 Years of Experience
The UNDP Electoral Support Retrospective was initiated in 2001 to prepare a comprehensive set of electoral assistance lessons learned and recommendations for UNDP country offices. The project was also designed to suggest practical strategies for UNDP Resident Representatives / UN Resident Coordinators and country office staff in the areas of electoral assistance planning and programme execution.
Access to Justice
Justica Restaurativa (Restorative Justice)
This book seeks to bring insights into the Restorative Justice model, which can be an important tool for building a participatory justice and promoting human rights, inclusion and social peace. As part of a Democratic Governance Thematic Trust Fund project, renowned international specialists on restorative justice were invited to contribute to the publication and articles were received from social scientists, criminologists, researchers, psychologists, as well as judges and other law professionals. This collection of articles is the first book on Restorative Justice published in Portuguese and is the result of a strong partnership between UNDP and the Brazilian Secretariat for Judiciary Reform.
Human Rights
HURIST Technical Papers
These papers explore the cross-cutting nature of UNDP's work in Human Rights.
E-Governance and Access to Information
UNDP and Access to Information
This "fast facts" brochure outlines the key points of UNDP's access to information activities, addressing both regional and thematic efforts. Reference documentation and additional information on subjects addressed. Links are provided to other useful websites.
Supporting Public Service Broadcasting: Learning from Bosnia and Herzegovina's Experience
Informed by a case study on broadcasting restructuring in Bosnia and Herzegovina , this paper highlights some of the key challenges in broadcasting restructuring in trying to meet broader democratic governance and poverty reduction objectives.
Decentralization, Local Governance and Urban/Rural Development
Fiscal Decentralization and Poverty Reduction
This primer intends to provide an introduction to the main principles of fiscal decentralisation, to examine linkages between poverty reduction and fiscal decentralisation, to briefly describe major comparative experiences, and to clarify UNDP's approaches and entry points. It should be read in conjunction with the UNDP Practice Notes on Decentralization, Local Governance and Urban/Rural Development and Public Administration Reform, which provide an overview of the broader issues and UNDP's position on these.
Pro Poor Urban Governance: Lessons from Life
LIFE is a UNDP global programme that has focused on local governance and urban environmental issues since 1992, supporting community-based and local initiatives to realize immediate improvements to the lives of the urban poor and to influence policy. This report applies LIFE's 13 years of experience to localizing the MDGs.
The Role of Participation and Partnership in Decentralised Governance: A Brief Synthesis of Policy Lessons and Recommendations of Nine Country Case Studies on Service Delivery for the Poor
This brief synthesis summarizes the key policy lessons and recommendations of nine case studies commissioned within the framework of the UNDP-MIT Global Research Programme on Decentralised Governance and conducted by ten national research institutes.
- Overview of Decentralisation Worldwide: A Stepping Stone to Improved Governance and Human Development
Presented at the Second International Conference on Decentralisation, July 25– 27, 2002 Manila, Philippines, this paper will provides the conceptual framework linking development, governance and decentralisation; outlines the relationship between federal and unitary states and decentralisation; and analyzes the state of decentralisation in the world today through various measures of democracy, governance, decentralisation and current development programmes. An accompanying Powerpoint Presentation is available.
- A Global Analysis of UNDP Support to Decentralisation and Local Governance Programmes
This paper provides an overview of UNDP activities in the areas of democratic governance and decentralisation for the year 2001.
- Rural-Urban Linkages: An Emerging Policy Priority
It is evident that the solutions to many urban problems lie outside of urban areas while solutions to many rural problems can be found in urban areas. This study explores how policy makers can manage processes linking rural and urban areas in a complimentary manner that benefits both rural and urban populations and promotes sustainable human development. Published by UNDP's Bureau for Development Policy in 2001. - The Challenges of Linking
This study seeks to provide town and city mayors, parliamentarians, NGOs and other community leaders, together with decision-makers in central government, with an assessment of the state-of-the-art of city-to-city cooperation and the benefits which a link can bring to both partner communities in addressing urban issues.
Public Administration Reform and Anti-Corruption
- Corruption
and Development: Anti-Corruption Intervention for Poverty Reduction,
Realization of the MDGs and Promoting Sustainable Development
This primer explores the theoretical and empirical relationship between
corruption and the various aspects of development including economic
growth, poverty, human rights, gender, governance, human development,
and environment and sustainable development. It recommends ways in
which UNDP could integrate anti-corruption principles and strategies
with its technical assistance to effectively implement anti-corruption
interventions to reduce poverty, realize the Millennium Development
Goals and promote sustainable development.
[Note: this primer complements the practice note "Mainstreaming
Anti-Corruption in Development" by extending concepts and
programming guidelines.]
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Corruption and Good Governance
This review begins by isolating the underlying economic
causes of corruption in industrial and developing countries. The study
next assesses options for combating corruption. The concluding section
considers the role of the international lending and donor communities
in supporting systemic reform and in assuring the integrity of the
projects they finance.
- World
Public Sector Reports
The World Public Sector Report, one of UNDESA’s Flagship
Reports, aims to capture the emerging issues, concerns and innovations
in governance and public administration, especially those that contribute
to the realization of the UN Development Agenda including the Millennium
Development Goals (MDGs). The World Public Sector Report is intended
for policy makers, practitioners and civil society, particularly in
developing countries and transition economies.
- World
Public Sector Report 2005
The World Public Sector report is a biennial publication
of the United Nation’s Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN/DESA).
UNDP provided ‘peer review’ for the 2005 report "Unlocking
the Human Potential for Public Sector Performance" which
examines the conditions of globalization, including economic integration,
fiscal discipline, introduction of information communications technologies
(ICTs) and democratic governance that have increasingly forced states
to redefine their role in public management and to reform the public
administration system.
Governance and Gender
Women’s Political Participation and Good Governance: 21st Century Challenges
This publication draws on the experiences and expertise of ministers, members of parliament, government officials and members of national, grassroots civil society and the private sector, who participated in a UNDP-sponsored meeting on Women’s Political Participation—21st Century Challenges (New Delhi, March 1999). It focuses on a number of issues including progress made in women’s political participation since Beijing, the Indian experiment with constitutional amendments mandating the reservation of one third of local government-elected representation to women, and the wider connection between gender, poverty and governance.
Gender and Governance
Published by the UNDP India Human Development Resource Centre, the essays in this volume are the outcome of a year long collaborative exploration of the multiple factors that influence the process of engendering governance in complex societies, in particular the changing roles of various actors including women’s movements, the state and civil society. These papers advance a theoretical structure, both positive and normative, within which the question of gendered governance may be pursued.
Women are Citizens Too: The Laws of the State, the Lives of Women
In December 2001, UNDP, with support from the International Development Research Center, launched a pilot initiative on Gender and Citizenship in the Arab world. This initiative is a sub-component of the UNDP Arab States Regional Programme on Governance and is based on the premise that a "Citizenship Framework" is a particularly powerful one, both conceptually and pragmatically, for empowering women and addressing their unequal access to public spaces in the Arab world. Synthesizing lessons learned through this initiative, this paper focuses on three aspects of citizenship: (1) family laws; (2) social protection laws; and (3) nationality and election laws. Also in Arabic.
Gender Sensitive and Pro-Poor Indicators of Good Governance
Prepared as a background paper to the April 2005 UNDP Oslo Governance Centre and Indian Council for Social Science Research International workshop on engendering and empowering governance indicators, this paper explores the extent to which existing indicators of governance are gender-sensitive and pro-poor and considers how they could be made more so, and proposes some additional indicators that might better capture the gender and poverty dimensions of governance.
