To say that there is room tor improvement in the U.N. development operations would be the understatement of this Development Decade. The truth is that the U.N. launched its development program without an overall policy or a sound strategy III organized for the task, it is still stumbling along an uncharted path.

The Expanded Program of Technical Assistance, or EPTA (so called because it had some modest precursors), was the first program of significant size that brought together the entire U.N. family, i.e.. the United Nations and its specialized agencies. Almost from birth it was caught in a procedural tangle. Expediency, compromises, ad hoc decisions—especially to accommodate the conflicting agency interests and viewpoints—became its hallmark.