UN Programmes and Funds

A body born from a crisis

• Most programmes and funds began as a quick answer to an emergency.
• The General Assembly voted them into being, one resolution at a time.
• Specialized agencies are different. They come from their own treaties.
• Each programme has an executive director, ranked as an Under-Secretary-General. An executive board governs it.
• The board reports to the General Assembly. (Source: Wikipedia: UN System)

Who pays the bills?

• Programmes and funds live on voluntary contributions.
• Specialized agencies also get assessed dues, which are mandatory.
• Voluntary money is shaky. In 2018 several donors paused gifts to UNEP after a scandal around its then-director.
• The UN has closed only one such body. That was UNRRA, which shut in 1959. UNHCR replaced its refugee work. (Source: Wikipedia: UNEP)

UNICEF: milk for the children of a broken Europe

• The war had ended. Millions of European children were cold and hungry.
• A Polish doctor, Ludwik Rajchman, had pushed for such a fund since 1943.
• Maurice Pate, an American relief worker, became the first chairman.
• On 11 December 1946 the UN created the International Children’s Emergency Fund.
• It was meant to be temporary. In 1950 it began helping children in poorer countries. In 1953 it became permanent.
• The name lost “International” and “Emergency”, but the short form UNICEF stayed.
• It won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1965. It now works in about 192 countries and territories. (Source: Wikipedia: UNICEF)

UNHCR: a three-year job that never ended

• After World War II, millions of Europeans had no homes.
• In December 1950 the UN set up a High Commissioner for Refugees. Work began on 1 January 1951.
• Many states wanted it to close in three years. It never did.
• The first High Commissioner was Gerrit van Heuven Goedhart of the Netherlands.
• Later crises kept coming: Hungary in 1956, then Hong Kong, then Algeria.
• The 1951 Refugee Convention defined who a refugee is. The 1967 Protocol removed its limits of place and time.
• UNHCR won the Nobel Peace Prize twice, in 1954 and 1981.
• By the end of 2024, about 123.2 million people were forcibly displaced worldwide. (Source: Wikipedia: UNHCR)

WFP: food aid, first as an experiment

• In 1960 an American food-aid chief, George McGovern, urged a shared food-aid scheme.
• The UN and FAO started it in 1963, on a three-year trial.
• Its first job was in Sudan. It fed Nubian families who had been moved from Wadi Halfa.
• In 1965 the trial became permanent.
• Today WFP sits in Rome, next to FAO and IFAD. It works in over 120 countries.
• It won the 2020 Nobel Peace Prize for fighting hunger and for stopping hunger being used as a weapon of war. (Source: Wikipedia: WFP)

UNDP: two aid bodies become one

• On 22 November 1965 two older bodies merged: a technical-help programme and a special fund.
• The result was UNDP, based in New York.
• It works in 177 countries, on poverty, governance and recovery.
• Its biggest brand is the Human Development Report, published every year since 1991. (Source: Wikipedia: UNDP)

UNEP: a small office in Nairobi

• In June 1972 the UN held its Stockholm Conference on the human environment.
• The conference opened on 5 June 1972. That date is now World Environment Day, and UNEP is often dated to it.
• Its headquarters went to Nairobi. That made it the first major UN body based in the Global South.
• UNEP helped negotiate the 1987 Montreal Protocol, which protects the ozone layer.
• It also helped negotiate the Minamata Convention on mercury.
• Its governing body is the UN Environment Assembly, with all 193 members. It replaced an older council in 2012.

Who sits where

• New York: UNICEF, UNDP and UNFPA.
• Rome: WFP.
• Geneva: UNHCR.
• Nairobi: UNEP and UN-Habitat.

What the HDI measures

• The Human Development Index combines income, health and education.
• The education part uses two measures: mean years of schooling and expected years of schooling.
• Literacy and dropout rates are not part of today’s HDI.
• A country’s HDI can rise even if some parts stay flat. India showed this in the 2020 report.

Traps

• Programmes and funds are not agencies. For the other side, see IntlRel0028 — UN Specialized Agencies: Mandates and Headquarters.
• Nairobi hosts more than one UN body. UNEP’s special point is that it was the first major body headquartered in the Global South.
• UNHCR was meant to last three years. That detail is a common exam twist.
• For UNOPS and similar bodies, see IntlRel0104 — UNOPS and UN Funds, Programmes and Subsidiary Bodies.