Abstract
What is the UN’s role in development? Given persisting resource constraints, how are its capabilities most usefully deployed? Should it continue providing ‘hands-on’ delivery of technical or programbased assistance, or is it better suited as a source of policy initiative — a benchmark provider that promotes development standards criteria? Have the UN’s agencies evolved tested philosophies of development praxis, or are they constantly re-adapting to promote what is most likely to extract resources from discretionary funding sources? These are unresolved questions among development practitioners and within UN circles, where staff defending budgets, careers, or organizational loyalties are not disinterested participants. Fuelling the debate have been expanded NGO activity and philosophies of development challenging established systems of multilateral assistance. This scrutiny questions whether UN development processes can simultaneously serve the development needs of governments and keep faith with grassroots aspirations. Another difficulty commonly raised concerns the nature, extent, and future of UN collaboration with the Bretton Woods institutions.1 Some critics question whether the UN should be in the business of technical assistance at all.2
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Notes
For debate, see Thomas G. Weiss, David P. Forsyth, and Roger A. Coate, The United Nations and Changing World Politics (Boulder: Westview Press, 1994), 241.
Asian Development Bank, Human Resources Development: Smaller Pacific Island Countries (Bangkok: ADB, Office of Pacific Operations, 1995).
On FAO/ESCAP strains, see John Abbott, Politics and Poverty: A Critique of the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations (London: Routledge, 1992), 27.
For the difficulties concerned, see J. Martin Rochester, Waiting for the Millennium: The United Nations and the Future of World Order (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1993), 138–39.
Ruben D. Mendez, International Public Finance (New York: OUP, 1992), 176–7. In the UNDP’s fifth cycle (1991–6) non-core resources were estimated at 89 per cent of core program resources, more than double the percentage for the fourth cycle. DP/1994/20, 18.
Catherine Gwin, ‘A Comparative Assessment’, in Mahbub ul Haq (ed.), The United Nations and the Bretton Woods Institutions (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1995), 106.
Chow Kit Boey, Chew Moh Leen, and Elizabeth Su, One Partnership in Development: UNDP and Singapore (Singapore: UN Association of Singapore, 1989), 14.
Comment of relevant Asian Development Bank representative, Norida Morita. Reuters, ‘Mekong Region Meeting Seen to Boost Cooperation’, 28 August 1996.
Comments of Krishan G. Singh, UNDP Assistant Administrator and Director Regional Bureau Asia Pacific, ‘UNDP Aid Program to Support Regional Cooperation in Asia-Pacific’, Philippine Development, 19, 2 (1992), 18.
Carter Brandon and Ramesh Ramankutty, ‘Towards an Environmental Strategy for Asia’, World Bank Discussion Paper 224 (Washington D.C.: World Bank, 1993), 7.
Asian Development Bank, ‘Managing Asia’s Cities’, Environmental Law and Policy, 26, 1 (1996), 23.
Jie Huang, ‘Structural Disarticulation and Third World Human Development’, International Journal of Comparative Sociology, XXXVI, 3–4 (1995), 166.
UNDP, The Experience of the Philippines (New York: UNDP Series on Sustainable Human Development, 1994).
Keith Griffin, ‘Foreign Aid After the Cold War’, Development and Change, 22, 4 (1991), 651.
J. Mak and S. Naya, ‘Is there a need for a Pacific Islands Development Bank?’, Pacific Economic Bulletin, 9, 2 (1994), 37.
I.G. Bertram and R.F. Watters, ‘The MIRAB Process: Earlier Analysis in Context’, Pacific Viewpoint, 27, 1 (1986), 47–59.
Te’o I.J. Fairbairn, with contributions by M.T. Skully, Private Sector Development in the South Pacific (University of New South Wales Centre for South Pacific Studies, Monograph 3, 1992), 2.
B.T. Brooks, ‘The Significance of the South Pacific for Comparative Studies in Labour Law’, Victoria University of Wellington Law Review, 26, 2 (1996), 347.
Vanessa Griffin, ‘The Politics of Sustainable Development in the Pacific’, in Atu Emberson-Bain (ed.), Sustainable Development or Malignant Growth? Perspectives on Pacific Island Women (Suva: Marama Publications, 1994), 264.
Greg Fry, ‘Framing the Islands: Knowledge and Power in Changing Australian Images of the “South Pacific”’, (Canberra: Department of International Relations/RSPAS/ANU Working Paper 1996/5, 1997), 27.
UNDP/UNOPS, Project Performance Evaluation Report, Pacific Regional Equitable and Sustainable Human Development, PMI/92/300, (Suva: ESHDP 1995), 1.
Ian Oxenford, ‘An Acronym for Every Problem?’, Pacific Economic Bulletin, 10, 2 (1995), 88.
Michael A. Ntumy, ‘Introduction’, in Michael Ntumy (ed.), South Pacific Island Legal Systems (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1993), xxii.
Stephen Pollard, ‘Pacific Economic Policy: To Invest or to Protect?’, Pacific Economic Bulletin, 10, 2 (1995), 82.
Conclusion of the 1992 Pacific Islands Countries/Partners deliberation. Richard Mann, Technical Assistance and Training in the Pacific Island Countries. A Guide to Design and Appraisal (Suva: Forum Secretariat, 1993), 1.
Christopher Browne, Pacific Island IMF Member Countries: Recent Economic Developments and Medium-Term Prospects (Washington D.C.: IMF, 1995), 5.
Parviz Fartash, ‘Governance and Sustainable Human Development’, Annex XVI, Statement to 1994 Suva Ministerial Meeting on Pacific Human Development Report (UNDP: Suva, 1994).
Richard Taylor, ‘Problems of Health Administration in Small States: Some Observations from the Pacific’, in Yash Ghai (ed.), Public Administration and Management in Small States: Pacific Experiences (London: Commonwealth Secretariat and USP, 1990), 95.
Edward Warrington, ‘A Capacity for Policy Management: Re-Appraising the Context in Micro-States’, Asian Journal of Public Administration, 16, 1 (1994), 123.
Yanuca Island Declaration (Manila: WHO, 1995). See also Gregory J. Dever and Sitaleki A. Finau, ‘The Yanuca Island Declaration: Pacific Health in the Twenty-First Century’, Pacific Health Dialog, 2, 2 (1995), 70.
Heather Rae and Chris Reus-Smit, The United Nations: Between Sovereignty and Global Governance? Summary of Proceedings (School of Politics: La Trobe University Melbourne, 1996, 28–9.
For Papua New Guinea, this claim is endorsed by Edward Wolfers, ‘Politics, Development and Resources: Reflections on Constructs, Conflict and Consultants’, in Stephen Henningham and R. J. May (eds.), Resources, Development and Politics in the Pacific Islands (Bathurst: Crawford House Press, 1992), 250.
Mahesh Prasad, ‘NAM Ministers nix ILO moves on trade—social clause’, Third World Economics (1995), 18–19.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Copyright information
© 1998 Roderic Alley
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Alley, R. (1998). The UN and Development. In: The United Nations in Southeast Asia and the South Pacific. International Political Economy Series. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-26825-2_4
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-26825-2_4
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-26827-6
Online ISBN: 978-1-349-26825-2
eBook Packages: Palgrave Political & Intern. Studies CollectionPolitical Science and International Studies (R0)