ABSTRACT
The UNDP provides an interesting case study. It is not strong in terms of either financial resources or expertise, but it draws strength from its special relationship with developing country governments, and it has, in recent years, derived considerable moral authority from its close association with the human development paradigm. In this chapter we first review UNDP’s strengths and weaknesses, and then examine its activities in relation to human development, ethics and human rights – showing that it treads a careful path within the constraining walls of political feasibility. The UNDP is frequently compared – for better or worse – with the World
Bank. In this light, it appears as more bureaucratic, but more responsive to the governments of poor countries; less competent, but – thanks largely to the Human Development Reports – as promoting a more ‘humane’ development agenda. In his recent history of the UNDP, Craig Murphy draws a rather positive
picture of the organisation. He describes it as ‘the development programme of the developing countries’, the intergovernmental organization most trusted by governments in the developing world because it was the most responsive to them’ (Murphy 2006: 8). It has, he says, provided ‘the most extensive and most consistent presence of the entire UN system throughout the world’ (Murphy 2006: 5). ‘Not the richest organization in its field by a long way, but usually the one that is the most connected to all the rest’ (Murphy 2006: 4).
