UN Development Function: A Forgotten Task for Effective Multilateralism

As the United Nations is embracing an ever more comprehensive development agenda, it needs to transform and expand its operational functions accordingly. IDOS researchers emphasise this need in a discussion of recent IDOS publications on universalising the UN development function.

Photo: Max-Otto Baumann discussed the universality of the United Nations with representatives of member states of the United Nations and representatives of the civil society in New York on 18 October.

©IDOS

Currently, the UN’s operational activity in sustainable development is directed exclusively at developing countries – as if development challenges can be bifurcated into separate global camps and in contrast to the UN‘s other pillars. Human rights, peace and security are organised universally and not along an outdated North-South dichotomy. It’s against that background that IDOS researchers Dr Max-Otto Baumann, Dr Sebastian Haug and Adolf Kloke-Lesch (Associate Researcher) argue that if the UN, with its quasi-universal reach, wants to effectively address the challenges of global sustainable development, it must build up an operational cooperation function within high-income countries and make them part of collective problem-solving.

At the invitation of the United Nations University Centre for Policy Research in New York, Max-Otto Baumann presented and discussed recent IDOS publications on universalising the UN development function on 18 October in New York. The discussion round was attended by representatives from member states, the United Nations and civil society. From the discussion emerged, among other things, the recognition that the debate about universality also has relevance for the fledgling debate about a post-2030 framework. Moreover, it can provide some cues, how the field of development cooperation should engage with the growing number of middle-income countries in which traditional development support is increasingly inappropriate.

Leave Comment

Deine E-Mail-Adresse wird nicht veröffentlicht. Erforderliche Felder sind mit * markiert