The UN and Development provides the first comprehensive overview of the development policies and activities of the United Nations system from the late 1940s to the present. With an explicit focus on the history of the ideas that have been generated, institutionalized, and implemented by UN organizations, this book examines changing trends in development paradigms from the concept of technical assistance to underdeveloped countries, as they were called in the late 1940s, to development cooperation in the 21st century. Olav Stokke traces this fascinating story and demonstrates the UN's essential role and its future challenges in aiding the least developed countries and the globe's billion poorest inhabitants.

"Devaki Jain opens the doors of the United Nations and shows how it has changed the female half of the world -- and vice versa. Women, Development, and the UN is a book that every global citizen, government leader, journalist, academic, and self-respecting woman should read." -- Gloria Steinem "Devaki Jain's book nurtures your optimism in this terrible war-torn decade by describing how women succeeded in empowering both themselves and the United Nations to work toward a global leadership inspired by human dignity." -- Fatema Mernissi In Women, Development, and the UN, internationally noted development economist and activist Devaki Jain traces the ways in which women have enriched the work of the United Nations from the time of its founding in 1945. Synthesizing insights from the extensive literature on women and development and from her own broad experience, Jain reviews the evolution of the UN's programs aimed at benefiting the women of developing nations and the impact of women's ideas about rights, equality, and social justice on UN thinking and practice regarding development. Jain presents this history from the perspective of the southern hemisphere, which recognizes that development issues often look different when viewed from the standpoint of countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. The book highlights the contributions of the four global women's conferences in Mexico City, Copenhagen, Nairobi, and Beijing in raising awareness, building confidence, spreading ideas, and creating alliances. The history that Jain chronicles reveals both the achievements of committed networks of women in partnership with the UN and the urgent work remaining to bring equality and justice to the world and its women.

International commissions, academics, practitioners, and the media have long been critical of the UN’s development efforts as disjointed and not fit for purpose; yet the organization has been an essential contributor to progress and peacebuilding. This handbook explores the activities of the UN development system (UNDS), the largest operational pillar of the organization and arguably the arena in which its ideational endeavors have made the biggest contribution to thinking and standards. Contributions focus on the role of the UNDS in sustainable social, economic, and environmental development, describing how the UNDS interacts with the other major functions of the UN system, and how it performs operationally in the context of the new 2030 development agenda focused on the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The volume is divided into three sections: Realizing the SDGs: opportunities and challenges; Resources, partnerships, and management; and Imagining the future of the UN in development. Comprised of chapters by knowledgeable and authoritative UN experts, this book provides cutting-edge and up-to-date research on the strengths and weaknesses of the UNDS, with each chapter focusing on different operational and ideational aspects. Chapter 11 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.

This book is devoted to the 25th anniversary of the United Nations Declaration on the Right to Development. It contains a collection of analytical studies of various aspects of the right to development, which include the rule of law and good governance, aid, trade, debt, technology transfer, intellectual property, access to medicines and climate change in the context of an enabling environment at the local, regional and international levels. It also explores the issues of poverty, women and indigenous peoples within the theme of social justice and equity. The book considers the strides that have been made over the years in measuring progress in implementing the right to development and possible ways forward to make the right to development a reality for all in an increasingly fragile, interdependent and ever-changing world.

This volume provides a short and accessible introduction to the organization that serves as the primary coordinator of the work of the UN system throughout the developing world –the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). The book: traces the origins and evolution of UNDP, outlining how a central UN funding mechanism and field network developed into a more comprehensive development agency evaluates the UNDP’s performance and results, both in its role as system coordinator and as a development organization in its own right considers the return of the UNDP to a more central role within the UN development system, in order to review the successive attempts at UN development system reform, the reasons for failure and the future possibilities for a more effective system with the UNDP at the centre. Offering a clear, comprehensive overview and analysis of the organization, this work will be of great interest to students and scholars of development studies, international organizations and international relations.

The UN is often questioned about its ongoing relevance and overall effectiveness in the 21st century, particularly in its involvement with educational policy and co-operation around the globe. This ground-breaking book examines the four key agencies within the UN system that share the vital role of addressing educational futures: UNESCO, the World Bank, UNICEF and UNDP. As the core of educational multilateralism, these agencies powerfully reflect the UN's historic grounding in peace, human rights and economic development. The history of each agency's commitment to education is explored with critical detachment, with particular attention paid to the post-Cold War period, during which each agency has needed to re-think the impact of globalisation on both its modes of operation as well as the content of its education policies. Just as education policy itself has been subject to the impact of globalisation, so to has each agency had to adapt at a time when not only education but also their own mandates have been thrown open to question. This timely book will be essential reading for all those working with and for UN agencies, foreign aid workers and the development co-operation industry. At a time when education policies, budgets and strategies appear wide open to profound changes, this book will provide a much-needed roadmap to the future.

Chapter 14 from this book is published open access and free to read or download from Oxford Scholarship Online, https://oxford.universitypressscholarship.com/ Before the UN Sustainable Development Goals enables professionals, scholars, and students engaged with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to develop a richer understanding of the legacies and historical complexities of the policy fields behind each goal. Each of the seventeen chapters tells the decades- or centuries-old backstory of one SDG and reveals the global human connections, governance tools and frameworks, and the actors involved in past efforts to address sustainable development challenges. Collectively, the seventeen chapters build a historical latticework that reveals the multiple and often interwoven sources that have shaped the challenges later encompassed in the SDGs. Engaging and insightfully written, the book's chapters are authored by international experts from multiple disciplines. The book is an indispensable resource and a vital foundation for understanding the past's indelible footprint on our contemporary sustainable development challenges.