As a leading organization in global development efforts, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has undergone significant transformation over the years. UNDP works with people from all walks of life to help build nations that can withstand crises and promote and sustain growth that improves the quality of life for everyone. UNDP’s evolution reflects the changing world dynamics, where new challenges and opportunities are emerging. In this literature review, the author will trace UNDP’s journey and analyze the impact of UNDP’s evolution in carrying out its duties as a development agency.

Historical Overview of the Establishment of UNDP

As World War II brought the world to the atomic era, countries involved in the war were brought to their knees due to its economic woes. As the only surviving great power, the United States initiated a new international economic order. This new order was based on two main pillars: free trade and private investment. To achieve this, various international institutions were established to boost foreign investment, such as the World Bank. Despite this, the ever-increasing US assertiveness raised concerns from developing countries, as they felt they were not getting their fair share of aid and investment. 

In response to these concerns, US President Harry S. Truman proposed the establishment of a new organization that was envisioned to provide grants or low-interest loans to developing countries. Although the United States initially rejected this proposal, they later used it as an impetus to establish two new institutions: the International Finance Corporation (IFC) and the International Development Association (IDA). The IFC focused on lending to private companies, while the IDA provided low-interest loans to governments.

The development aid debate in 1958 prompted the United States to propose the merger of the UN aid program (EPTA) with the UN Special Fund into one new agency. This proposal was approved and the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) was established in 1966 as a specialized agency with an autonomous mandate and agreed upon by all UN member states. The initial objective of the organization was to assist developing countries in identifying and preparing major investment projects. Paul Hoffman, who had previously led the Marshall Plan program, returned as the first administrator of UNDP to establish close ties with the World Bank. 

Over time, various regional development institutions were established, such as the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), African Development Bank (AfDB), and Asian Development Bank. On the other hand, attempts to establish the UN Capital Development Fund (UNCDF) failed due to a lack of support from major donor countries. To this day, UNDP retains a prominent role in international development assistance. However, control over this aid is still dominated by major donor countries through financial contributions and interagency coordination. UNDP’s close relationship with the World Bank continues to draw criticism, with some questioning UNDP’s alignment with private investment interests. 

Theme and Literature Mapping

In order to understand the impact of UNDP’s evolution, the author compiled different types of literature that have been categorized based on its focus. The following table presents the categorization of the literature.

General Theme	Literature
UNDP’s Contribution to Human Development Progress	Santiso (2002), Hill (2003), dan Gold dan Conolly (2006)
Critique of UNDP’s Approach and Effectiveness in Promoting Human Development	Galli (1976), Forsythe (1997), Eberstadt (1997), Karliner (1999)
Balanced Perspective in Recognition of UNDP’s Strength and Weaknesses	Kaufmann (1971), Auerbach (1979)

UNDP’s Contribution to Human Development Progress

Carlos Santiso in his work entitled, “Promoting Democratic Governance and Preventing the Recurrence of Conflict: The Role of the United Nations Development Programme in Post-Conflict Peace-Building,” explains that UNDP’s evolution in traditional development has actively engaged in political processes and governance reforms in post-conflict societies. UNDP’s involvement in pioneering and demonstrating organizational commitment could be seen in Central America during the 1990s through the report, “Governing Council of the United Nations Development Program: Report on the Organizational Meeting for 1990, the Special Session and the Thirty-Seventh Session.” The report signifies a positive shift towards promoting sustainable human development through democracy assistance. 

In addition, Santiso emphasized that UNDP interventions in promoting democratic governance were facilitated and conditioned by the recipient country’s consent. While such interventions could limit the assertiveness of UNDP projects, they can also increase effectiveness by ensuring recipient country ownership or commitment to the programs. UNDP’s role in assisting conflict-prone and war-torn societies to reform the state, implement democratic governance, and secure the rule of law is seen as an important contribution to peacebuilding efforts, highlighting the organization’s positive impact in promoting democratic governance and human rights in post-conflict environments.

Ronald Hill and Kanwalroop Dhanda elaborated these notions further in “Technological Achievement and Human Development: A View from the United Nations Development Program,” Hill and Dhanda emphasized the important role of the UN, particularly the UNDP in assessing and promoting human development globally. The authors highlight UNDP’s extensive data collection efforts and its collaboration with various international institutions, such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank, and World Health Organization (WFO), to assess human development on a global scale. This process of data collection and assimilation undertaken by UNDP is critical in providing useful insights into the status of human development around the world. The authors also highlight UNDP’s annual publication of the Human Development Report, which serves as up-to-date information on the status of international human development. Through this report, UNDP contributes significantly to raising awareness and understanding of key issues related to human development, including the impact of technological advances.

Hill and Dhanda also recognized UNDP’s efforts in promoting human development by supporting the advancement of human capabilities in sectors such as medicine, communications, agriculture, energy, and manufacturing. By collaborating with other international institutions and maintaining field offices around the world, UNDP plays a critical role in addressing the large socioeconomic disparities among countries. This collaborative approach underscores UNDP’s commitment to driving positive change and progress in human development on a global scale. Nonetheless, the authors advocate for UNDP to facilitate creative partnerships among public agencies, private industry, and non-profit organizations to bridge the digital divide and improve human development outcomes. By promoting such partnerships and advocating for policy changes that support equitable access to resources and technologies, UNDP can further strengthen its positive impact in advancing human rights and development around the world.

The last piece of literature in this category is “Development and the United Nations: Achievements and Challenges for the Future,” written by Lorna Gold and Eileen Connolly in Irish Studies in International Affairs published in 2006. The authors highlight the UNDP’s role as a supervisor of human development by looking at the significant budget allocations for its programs. As a forum for discourse, the UN, including organs such as the General Assembly (UNGA), influences social and economic issues such as development. In addition, the UN extends its influence beyond specialized agencies such as the UNDP to shape international development norms and pressure rich countries to increase financial commitments. As the world’s largest provider of human development grants, UNDP partners with governments and Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) to address various development challenges. UNDP also plays an important role in offering alternative analysis to financial institutions, promoting concepts such as human development. During the Cold War, the UN served as the main platform for human rights discussions. The process of “divergence and convergence” witnessed debates on various categories of rights, with economic and social rights gaining particular focus and highlighting their importance in development policy. The authors acknowledge the UN’s positive contribution to development while recognizing the need for reform to improve its effectiveness in addressing global challenges. 

Criticisms of UNDP’s Approach and Effectiveness in Promoting Human Development

The first literature in this category is “The United Nations Development Program, ‘Development,’ and Multinational Corporations,” by Rosemary Galli published in 1976. Galli criticizes the UNDP’s partnership with multinational corporations (MNCs), which it sees as making developing countries dependent and limiting local industries. Galli argues that such partnerships served the MNCs’ profit interests over the long-term development goals of recipient countries. Unbalanced power dynamics are also highlighted, with MNCs having greater influence through their financial resources and networks. This can lead to the prioritization of corporate interests over the needs of local communities, as well as a potential lack of transparency and accountability. 

In addition, Galli focuses on “large projects” and complex “capital investments”, and sees potential restrictions on transparency of decision-making and resource allocation. Lack of local stakeholder and civil society engagement can weaken accountability and fuel concerns over environmental impacts, resource exploitation, and lack of corporate social responsibility. Furthermore, Galli questions the UNDP’s real contribution to democracy. While supporting democracy theoretically, UNDP’s economic programs may not directly support the development of an ideal democracy. Challenges in incorporating political rights into its reports and limitations in linking economic programs to fair and open practices are discussed. In that sense, the UNDP’s weak position and inconsistency in promoting democracy through economic projects is being criticized, along with the World Bank’s lack of real engagement on this issue.

David Forsythe, in a journal entitled “The United Nations, Human Rights, and Development,” argues that despite supporting democracy, UNDP’s actions lack practical realization. To begin with, Forsythe highlights the absence of a “democracy test” for aid recipients and points to examples where cooperation has continued under authoritarian regimes. This shows inconsistent application of democratic principles in decision-making. The second is that the abandonment of efforts to include human rights measures in the Human Development Report shows an unwillingness on the part of the UNDP to confront critical issues. Third, the use of a vague and non-political definition of democracy is criticized for ignoring important aspects of the political system and legal framework, potentially undermining true accountability. Lastly, Forsythe identifies a lack of emphasis on democratic rights in UNDP’s economic assistance programmes, which further calls into question the organization’s genuine commitment to democratic development.

Moreover, Nicholas Eberstadt in his work entitled, “The United Nations’ ‘Development Activities’: What Impact on Third World Development?” discusses the important role of the UN in promoting development assistance policies globally.  Eberstadt addresses concerns about the impact of two main aspects of UNDP’s work, namely policy advice and specific UNDP initiatives. Eberstadt argues that UN development doctrines, including those promoted by the UNDP, may have had a detrimental impact on low-income countries. As such, UNDP’s proposed solutions to Africa’s economic problems, which include policies such as the expansion of large parastatal companies and increased state intervention in farmer pricing, may not be effective in addressing the challenges in the region.

Ebesrtadt questions whether Western taxpayer funds allocated to UN development agencies have been spent wisely or appropriately, indicating a lack of clarity about the effectiveness of UNDP initiatives. UN development doctrines sometimes reinforce harmful economic policies in these regions, diverting attention from important governance and market-building tasks. Overall, Ebesrtadt implies that UNDP approaches and policies may not be aligned with the actual needs and priorities of developing countries, potentially leading to negative outcomes in terms of development and economic progress.

The last piece of literature in this category is “United Nations Development Program Solicits Funds Corporation,” written by Joshua Karliner, Amit Srivastava, and Kenny Bruno in the International Journal of Health Services published in 1999. The authors strongly criticize the UNDP for seeking funds from global corporations with questionable human rights, labor rights, and environmental records through initiatives such as the Global Sustainable Development Facility (GSDF). This collaboration raises concerns about potential negative impacts on UNDP’s independence, credibility, and ability to prioritize the needs of the world’s poverty-stricken people over corporate interests. 

In addition, the literature also highlights that alliances with companies known to prioritize profits over human rights and environmental responsibility could undermine the UN’s mission and values. Furthermore, there are concerns about transparency and accountability in the funding process. The call for increased measures addresses these criticisms and aims to ensure UNDP initiatives effectively serve marginalized communities while upholding human rights, labor rights, and environmental standards. Initiatives such as the GSDF can be seen as benefiting the image of global corporations more than making a meaningful contribution to sustainable human development, potentially contradicting UNDP’s core objectives.

Balanced Perspectives that Recognize UNDP’s Strengths and Weaknesses

The introductory literature as a counterbalancing category is the literature entitled, “The Capacity of the United Nations Development Program: The Jackson Report: Comment.” Kaufmann recognizes the positive achievements and significance of the UNDP as a major UN cooperation effort. This recognition demonstrates an understanding of UNDP’s role in global development and its contribution to sustainable development goals. However, Kaufmann also criticizes UNDP’s shortcomings in terms of programming, organization, information, finance, and time management. Therefore, Kaufmann offers specific recommendations from Jackson’s report to address the identified shortcomings within UNDP. These recommendations focus on adopting an effective country approach in planning and implementation, increasing flexibility, and integrating efforts to improve development outcomes.

Lastly, Kenneth Auerbach and Yoshinobu Yonekawa in their work, “The United Nations Development Program: Follow-Up Investment and Procurement Benefits,” present a balanced perspective on UNDP by analyzing the correlation between contributions to UNDP and indicators such as subcontracts awarded, demand for equipment, experts recruited, and scholarships awarded without showing a clear positive or negative bias. The authors demonstrate the complexity and nuance of UNDP’s activities, recognizing the benefits and challenges associated with its role in transferring resources and promoting development by providing an empirical analysis of the relationship between contributions to UNDP and procurement awards, emphasizing the need to consider the different types of benefits that developed and developing countries receive. This can be seen in UNDP contributions and procurement awards. In conclusion, the authors evaluate the relationship between UNDP and countries, both recipients and donors, to assess the effectiveness and outcomes of UNDP assistance programs.

Consensuses and Debates

After synthesizing and comparing various literature materials to see the adaptation of UNDP’s evolution to human development, the author analyzed the arguments and found two debates and two consensuses on the topic of UNDP as a specialized agency that impacts the advancement of human development. In this subsection, the author will mention and explain the consensus and debates that can be found in the chosen pieces of literature.

The first debate is related to UNDP’s involvement with multinational companies (MNCs). UNDP’s partnership with MNCs makes developing countries dependent and limits local industries. Joint ventures, management contracts, and others, between the governments of producing countries and multinational corporations will keep less developed countries in a dependency relationship with these corporations because the ruling elites and corporate elites share the same strategy for “development”. These partnerships prioritize the corporate profit motive over the long-term development goals of the recipient country. When decision-making processes are conducted without the participation of local communities, civil society organizations, and other affected parties, it is more difficult to track how resources are allocated and potential conflicts of interest are identified. As such, UNDP needs to evaluate partnerships with MNCs to ensure a balance between economic gain and long-term development.

The second concerns UNDP’s influence on democracy. UNDP’s economic program does not directly support the development of ideal democracy. The UNDP’s inconsistent stance on promoting democracy can be seen in the UNDP’s challenge to include political rights measures in its reports, facing strong reactions from developing countries. UNDP fails to link economic programs to free and fair democratic practices. Therefore, UNDP needs to strengthen its commitment to democracy by prioritizing political rights and improving the consistency of its programs.

Meanwhile, the first consensus was a view on the important role of UNDP in human development. UNDP is successful in providing funds and technical assistance to developing countries. This can be proven by UNDP’s cooperation with 170 countries and regions, with the aim of human development through various programs, such as education, health, and poverty alleviation to achieve poverty alleviation and reduction of inequality and exclusivity. In addition, UNDP also plays a role in advocacy and awareness of development issues, such as climate change and gender equality.

Lastly, it relates to UNDP’s reform process. This process is important as UNDP needs to improve transparency and accountability in the use of funds and decision-making. This goes hand in hand with strengthening the focus on democracy and human rights in its programs. By committing to these two things, UNDP can increase the effectiveness of its development programs by evaluating and refining its strategies. One way that UNDP can do this is by working with partners who are responsible and committed to sustainable development.

Literature Gap

From the literature analyzed, the author found a gap in the literature related to the adaptation and evolution of UNDP and its impact on human development. While much of the literature discusses the impact of programs focusing on UNDP’s global policies and strategies, there are significant gaps in the exploration and understanding of how UNDP carries out its mission of advancing human development at local and national levels. Researchers have not extensively explored the role of gender mainstreaming and inclusivity in UNDP’s post-conflict peacebuilding initiatives. Addressing these aspects could shed light on the organization’s efforts to promote gender equality and social inclusion in conflict-affected areas. Therefore, it is necessary to analyze the impact of UNDP’s gender and inclusiveness policies on different marginalized groups, such as people with disabilities, LGBTQ+ women, and indigenous peoples.

Author’s Reflection and Conclusion

Based on the author’s discussion, the UNDP, as an institution that was established as a body that advocates for change and connects countries to help people build better lives, has shown a strong and continuous commitment to advancing human development in various countries. UNDP’s ability to adapt and evolve in response to changing times and global needs makes it a relevant and effective organization. However, there is still much work to be done. Challenges and criticisms need to be addressed with innovative and effective solutions. Increased collaboration and partnerships with various parties are key to achieving ambitious human development goals in the future.

Bibliography

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Auerbach, Kenneth D., and Yoshinobu Yonekawa. “The United Nations Development Program: Follow-Up Investment and Procurement Benefits.” International Organization 33, no. 4 (1979): 509–24. http://www.jstor.org/stable/2706569.

Eberstadt, Nicholas. “The United Nations’ ‘Development Activities’: What Impact on Third World Development?” World Affairs 159, no. 4 (1997): 151–57. http://www.jstor.org/stable/20672497.

Forsythe, David P. “The United Nations, Human Rights, and Development.” Human Rights Quarterly 19, no. 2 (1997): 334–49. http://www.jstor.org/stable/762579.

Galli, Rosemary E. “The United Nations Development Program, ‘Development,’ and Multinational Corporations.” Latin American Perspectives 3, no. 4 (1976): 65–85. http://www.jstor.org/stable/2633314.

Gold, Lorna, and Eileen Connolly. “Development and the United Nations: Achievements and Challenges for the Future.” Irish Studies in International Affairs 17 (2006): 61–75. http://www.jstor.org/stable/30002098.

Karliner, Joshua, Amit Srivastava, and Kenny Bruno. “United Nations Development Program Solicits Funds Corporation.” International Journal of Health Services 29, no. 4 (1999): 813–19. http://www.jstor.org/stable/45131819.

Hill, Ronald Paul, and Kanwalroop Kathy Dhanda. “Technological Achievement and Human Development: A View from the United Nations Development Program.” Human Rights Quarterly 25, no. 4 (2003): 1020–34. http://www.jstor.org/stable/20069703.

Kaufmann, Johan. “The Capacity of the United Nations Development Program: The Jackson Report: Comment.” International Organization 25, no. 4 (1971): 938–49. http://www.jstor.org/stable/2705933.

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