The UN Development System

Abstract

The notions of international cooperation begat the epistemological bases of the specialized agencies and the funds and programs that followed. Promoting these “conditions of economic and social progress” was the technical logic driving the UNDS. In the early days of the UN, development was equated with economic progress. The term economic development was already of long date, at least since Schumpeter in the early part of the century,15 but it was being conceived as a transitive process, rather than an intransitive concept. If the UN became progressively marginalized in the economic realm, it remained active in thinking about the quality of growth and development. Environmental considerations have become the most recent addition to the prevailing UN framework of ideational and operational roles. Early thinking can be traced to the 1970s when several developed countries became preoccupied with the health and sustainability of the human environment and natural resources.