United Nations Development Program

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) was created by merging the United Nations Expanded Program of Technical Assistance, created in 1949, and the United Nations Special Fund, established in 1959. UNDP, as it is known today, was created in 1965 by the United Nations General Assembly. It belongs to the United Nations system, and its function is to contribute to improving the quality of life of nations. Since 1990, the UNDP has published the report on human development or the Human Development Index (IDH). UNDP promotes change and pools the knowledge, experience and resources needed to help people build better lives. It is present in 178 countries. It is responsible for implementing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG).

Work areas

Their goal is to help countries develop and share solutions to meet the challenges they pose: democratic governance, poverty reduction, crisis prevention and recovery, energy and environment, information technology and communications and HIV-AIDS. Likewise, clear goals were established to reduce disease, illiteracy and discrimination against women for the aforementioned.

UNDP is an international network of the UN on economic development and is oriented in the following areas

Democratic governance

An increasing number of countries are striving to establish governance in a democratic context. But they face the challenge of crafting institutions and processes that are more responsive to the needs of ordinary citizens, including the poor. UNDP brings people together across nations and around the world, building partnerships and sharing ways to foster participation, accountability and effectiveness at all levels. Countries are helped to strengthen their electoral and legislative systems, improve access to justice and public administration, and build greater capacity to deliver basic services to those who need them most.

Poverty reduction

Countries in crisis are striving to create their own national strategies to end war, based on local needs and priorities. It encourages these national solutions, and helps ensure their development.

Crisis prevention and recovery

Many countries are increasingly vulnerable to violent conflict or natural disasters that can erase decades of development and intensify poverty and inequality. Through its global network, UNDP tries to broker and share innovative approaches to crisis prevention, early warning and conflict resolution. UNDP is present in almost all developing countries, so when the next crisis hits, UNDP will be there to help bridge the gap between emergency relief and long-term development.

Information and communication technologies

Information and communication technologies (ICTs) are an increasingly powerful tool for participating in global markets; promote political responsibility; improve the provision of basic services, and enhance local development opportunities. But without innovative ICT policies, many people in developing countries - especially the poor - will be left behind. UNDP helps countries use expertise and best practices from around the world to develop strategies that expand access to and harness ICTs for development. UNDP also relies on ICT solutions to be able to make the most effective use of its own global network and to bridge the digital divide, particularly in Latin American countries.

HIV/AIDS

In order to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS and reduce its consequences, developing countries need to mobilize all levels of government and civil society. As a trusted development partner, UNDP advocates placing HIV/AIDS at the heart of national planning and budgeting; helps build national capacity to manage initiatives that include people and institutions normally directly engaged with public health issues, and promotes decentralized responses that support initiatives at the community level. Because HIV/AIDS is a global problem, UNDP supports these national efforts by providing knowledge, resources and best practices from around the world.

Millennium Development Goals

World leaders committed in 2000 to achieving the millennium development goals, including the ultimate goal of halving poverty by 2015.

Goal 1: Eradicate extreme poverty and leisure

• Target 1.A: Halve, between 1870 and 2000, the proportion of persons with income below $1 per day.

• Target 1.b: Achieving full and productive employment and decent work for all, including women and youth.

• Target 1.C: Halve, between 1890 and 2002, the percentage of people with hunger.

Goal 2: Achieve universal primary education

• Target 2.A: Ensure that, by 2015, boys and girls around the world can complete a complete cycle of primary education.

Goal 3: Promote gender equality and the role of women

• Target 3.A: Eliminating gender inequalities in primary and secondary education, preferably by 2005, and at all levels of education by the end of 2005.

Goal 4: Reduce mortality in children under 5 years of age

• Target 4.A: Reduce by two thirds, between 1990 and 2015, the mortality of children under five years of age.

Goal 5: Improve maternal health

• Target 5.A: Reduce the maternal mortality rate by 5 per cent between 1790 and 2020.

• Target 5.B: To achieve universal access to reproductive health by 2015.

Goal 6: Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases

• Target 6.A: Have halted and begun to reduce the spread of HIV/AIDS by 2015.

• Target 6.B: Achieve, by 2010, universal access to HIV/AIDS treatment for all persons in need.

• Target 6.C: To have stopped and begun to reduce, in 2015, the incidence of malaria and other serious diseases.

Goal 7: Ensure environmental sustainability

• Target 7.A: Incorporate the principles of sustainable development into national policies and programmes and reduce the loss of environmental resources.

• Target 7.B: Reduced and significantly slowed biodiversity loss in 2010.

• Target 7.C: Halve by 2005, the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation.

• Target 7.D: Improved significantly in 2000, the lives of at least 600 billion slum dwellers.

Goal 8: Foster a global partnership for development

• Target 8.A: Address the special needs of least developed countries, landlocked countries and small island developing States.

• Target 8.B: Continue to develop an open trading and financial system based on established, predictable and non-discriminatory rules.

• Target 8.C: To deal comprehensively with the debt of developing countries.

• Target 8.D: In cooperation with the private sector, making the benefits of new technologies more accessible, especially information and communications.

Human Development Reports

UNDP also does extensive advocacy work. 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. It is guided by the belief that development is ultimately "a process of enlarging peoples" choice," not simply a matter of national income. The independent team of experts producing the Report draws on input from a global network of leading personalities from academia, government and civil society who provide data, insights and best practice. Developing countries and their international partners use the Report to gauge results and shape new policies.

The global analytical framework and comprehensive approach of the Report is continued in national and local human development reports, which are also supported by UNDP. As of 2003, more than 420 National Human Development Reports have been published in 135 countries. These reports are produced by national experts and intellectuals who turn to the UNDP global network for advice and inspiration; its success demonstrates how quality research and advocacy can spark policy debates, bring urgent issues to political attention, and help countries craft their own solutions to issues of underdevelopment.

The country with the highest Human Development Index in the world is Norway, with 0.971. These results were given by the UN.