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The Capacity of the United Nations Development Program: The Jackson Report

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 May 2009

Johan Kaufmann
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Extract

Partly by design, partly by coincidence the twelve months from September 1969 to September 1970 saw an “explosion” of reports about development problems. This article is particularly concerned with one of these, Sir Robert Jackson's A Study of the Capacity of the United Nations Development System. While the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) covers only a minor percentage of total assistance extended to less developed countries, its significance reaches beyond its quantitative development impact It has become the single most important United Nations cooperative effort and, more generally, represents an unprecedented example of intergovernmental and interorganizational cooperation.

Type
Research Article
Information
International Organization , Volume 25 , Issue 4 , fall 1971 , pp. 938 - 949
Copyright
Copyright © The IO Foundation 1971

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References

1 See the following as a sampling of these reports: Partners in Development, Report of the Commission on International Development, Pearson, Lester B., chairman (New York: Praeger Publishers, 1969)Google Scholar; Prebisch, Raúl, Change and Development: Latin America's Great Task, Report Submitted to the Inter-American Development Bank (Washington, 07 1970) (Mimeographed)Google Scholar; Towards Accelerated Development: Proposals for the Second United Nations Development Decade, Report of the Sixth Session of the Committee for Development Planning (UN Document ST/ECA/128) (Tinbergen report) (New York: United Nations, 1970)Google Scholar; and U.S. Foreign Assistance on the 1970s: A New Approach, Report to the President from the Task Force on International Development (Peterson report) (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1970)Google Scholar.

2 A Study of the Capacity of the United Nations Development System (UN Document DP/5) (Jackson report) (2 vols.; Geneva: United Nations, 1969)Google Scholar. Hereinafter references to the Jackson report will be indicated by the inclusion of volume and page numbers in the text.

3 UN Document DP/6 (Comments of the Interagency Consultative Board on the Capacity Study); UN Document DP/L.134 and Add.1 (The Capacity of the United Nations Development System: Report of the Administrator); and Economic and Social Council Official Records (49th session), Supplement No. 6A, Annex (“Consensus Approved by the Governing Council”).

4 UN Document DP/6, paragraph 11.

5 Ibid., paragraph 12.

6 Economic and Social Council Official Records (49th session), Supplement No. 6A, Annex, paragraph 40.

7 UN Document E/4840/Add.1/Rev.1, paragraph 1.

8 Ibid., paragraph 2.

9 Address to the UN Economic and Social Council by Robert S. McNamara, president of the IBRD, the International Finance Corporation (IFC), and the International Development Association (IDA), November 13, 1970. On the relation between preinvestment and investment see Taylor, K. W., “The Pre-Investmcm Function in the International Development System,” International Development Review, 1970 (Vol. 12, No. 2), pp. 2–10Google Scholar, who criticizes the fact that thus far institutions outside the IBRD have had little access to UNDP preinvestment funds.

10 On the role of international organization secretariats see Kaufmann, Johan, Conference Diplomacy: An Introductory Analysis (Dobbs Ferry, N.Y: Oceana Publications, 1968), chapter 6Google Scholar. It would be interesting to investigate whether optimal coordination arrangements in recipient countries would also promote improved coordination within developed countries. The latter could not permit sectoral interests within their administrations to upset coordinated development planning in less developed countries.

11 UN Document DP/L.185 (Continuation of the Consideration of the Improvement of the Capacity of the United Nations Development System: Proposals on the Future Organization, Methods and General Procedures of the UNDP).