ABSTRACT
This chapter seeks to accomplish four tasks after providing a quick snapshot of the overall United Nations development system (UNDS). First task is to explore the historical relationship between the financing instruments that dominated different phases of the UNDS and our understanding of the concept of multilateralism. The second task is to analyse the defining characteristics of multilateral finance in the UN context. What makes a financial instrument more or less multilateral? The third is to examine a number of new financial instruments and their possible impact on the future shape of multilateralism in the UNDS. There follow some concluding thoughts on financing for a new multilateralism. Four periods are helpful markers within the history of financing for the UN’s development system. The four phases are: the origins; the move away from communities of interest; service for member states; and the goal-setting era.
