The United Nations Development Programme: A Better Way?

The United Nations Development Programme is the central network co-ordinating the work of the United Nations in over 160 developing countries. This book provides the first authoritative and accessible history of the Programme and its predecessors. Based on the findings of hundreds of interviews and archives in more than two-dozen countries, Craig Murphy traces the history of the UNDP's organizational structure and mission and provides a critique of its multilateral financial institutions and shared activities in the development of doctrines. He argues that the principles on which the UNDP was founded remain as relevant in a world divided by terrorism as they were in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War, as are the fundamental problems that have plagued the Programme from its origin, including the opposition of traditionally isolationist forces in the industrialized world.

Craig N. Murphy is the Historian of the United Nations Development Programme and Professor of International Relations at Wellesley college