United Nations Development Group

United Nations Development Group

United Nations Development Group
United Nations Development Group
Abbreviation	UNDG
Formation	1997
Type	Group
Legal status	Active
Head	Helen Clark
Parent organization	ECOSOC/ Chief Executives Board (CEB)
Website	www.undg.org

The United Nations Development Group (UNDG) is a consortium of many United Nations agencies, created by the Secretary-General of the United Nations in 1997 to improve the effectiveness of UN development activities at the country level.

Its strategic priorities are to respond to the Triennial comprehensive policy review (TCPR) - which became in 2008 the Quadrennial comprehensive policy review (QCPR) - and global development priorities, as well as to ensure the UN development system becomes more internally focused and coherent. The UNDG strategic priorities give direction to UNDG members' efforts at the global, regional and country level to facilitate a step change in the quality and impact of UN support at the country level. Currently, the UNDG is one of the main UN actors involved in the development of the Post-2015 Development Agenda.

UNDG brings together 32 UN agencies and groups, plus five observers working on various development issues.

By 1997, there were calls within the United Nations to draw all UN agencies working on development issues together; for the many UN Development Programmes, Funds, and Specialised Agencies were encroaching upon each other's activities. This was especially so with the Delivering as One initiative. An initial proposal was to merge the UNICEF, the World Food Programme and the UNFPA into the UNDP. Finally, then Secretary General Kofi Annan worked to form the UNDG and won praise from then UNDP Administrator James Speth.

The UNDG is one of the three pillars of the UN system Chief Executives Board (CEB), which furthers coordination and cooperation on a wide range of substantive and management issues facing UN system organizations. The CEB brings the executive heads of UN organizations together on a regular basis under the chairmanship of the Secretary-General. Within the CEB structure, the High-Level Committee on Management works on system-wide administrative and management issues, the High-Level Committee on Programmes considers global policy issues, while the United Nations Development Group deals with operational activities for development with a focus on country-level work.