UNDP’s work is structured around four pillars in which it has comparative advantage over other development partners/players: poverty reduction, democratic governance, crisis prevention and recovery, and environment and sustainable development. All of these support UNDP’s overarching goal of human development and the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

UNDP employs a common set of strategies also referred to as cross-practice themes to achieve its development goals: capacity development, south-south cooperation and gender equality. All of these constitute a critical foundation for human development.

Capacity Development

The Strategic Plan emphasizes that if human development is ‘what we do,’ then capacity development is ‘how we do it.’ In consultation with national governments and various local and international partners, UNDP identifies needs or constraints in achieving human development goals in the country. These constraints may range from a weak public sector that hampers effective delivery of public services to citizens to the lack of capacity in national governments to restore a cohesive society in a conflict-ridden country. UNDP attempts to ensure that, either directly or indirectly, people, governments, institutions and communities are provided with the tools and training required to take charge of addressing their own needs in a way that can be sustainable. The fundamental premise is that all countries need to proceed on their national development paths while UNDP’s role is to ensure that they are better equipped for it, despite differences in their development levels.

Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women

UNDP is committed to supporting the capacity development of its national partners to adopt approaches that advance women’s rights and take account of the full range of their contributions to development, as a foundation for MDG achievement.

Gender equality is an explicitly stated development goal itself (Millennium Development Goal 3) and is important as a means to achieve all of the other MDGs. Drawing on a vision in which human development guides all policymaking and approaches to development, UNDP supports national partners to accelerate their progress towards the MDGs by identifying and responding to the gender equality dimensions of its four pillars in which it has comparative advantage over other development partners/players: poverty reduction, democratic governance, crisis prevention and recovery, and environment and energy.

South-South Cooperation

UNDP supports the capacity development of its national partners by getting developing countries to work together to find solutions to common development challenges.

This approach, known as South-South Cooperation, promotes closer technical and economic cooperation among developing countries by employing experts from the South, sharing best practices from the South, and helping to develop a sense of ownership of the development process in the South.

South-South Cooperation promotes shared interests and addresses common concerns. It is also a means by which developing countries can diversify and expand their development options and economic links, and a powerful tool for building new partnerships, creating more democratic and equitable forms of global interdependence and global governance.