UNDP and UNEP

In one line

The United Nations Development Programme and the United Nations Environment Programme are both subsidiary organs of the General Assembly financed by voluntary contributions, the first coordinating the system's development work in the field and the second acting as the environmental conscience and secretariat of the system.

Their common legal character

Both are subsidiary organs, established by the General Assembly under Charter article 22, read with article 7(2), in pursuit of the purposes in article 55 and under the responsibility that article 60 places on the Assembly.

Neither is a specialized agency. The tests set out in [UNICEF] apply to both: no constituent treaty, no separate membership, no assessed contributions, no separate legal personality, existence at the pleasure of the Assembly, and financing by voluntary contributions. They report through the Economic and Social Council to the General Assembly, and each has an Executive Board or governing body of Member States.

Their expenses are not article 17(2) expenses. A Member that gives nothing is not in arrears, and article 19 does not apply to a failure to contribute to a programme.

The United Nations Development Programme

Established by the General Assembly in 1965, by the merger of two earlier arrangements, the Expanded Programme of Technical Assistance and the United Nations Special Fund, both of which had been created by the Assembly in the 1950s. The object of the merger was to end the duplication that two separate development funds had produced.

What it does.

Country programmes. It works in a large number of countries and territories at the request of the government concerned, on programmes agreed with that government. Consent is the basis, as it is for every operational body in this module, and it follows from article 2(7) of the Charter and from sovereignty.

Coordination of the system in the field. Its distinctive function is not what it delivers but what it holds together. Historically the resident representative of the Programme in a country also served as the resident coordinator of the United Nations system there, and the coordination function has since been strengthened and separated. That role is the practical answer to the incoherence described in [The Economic and Social Council]: the Council coordinates on paper at headquarters, and the coordinator coordinates in the country.

Capacity building rather than construction. The Programme's model is to strengthen a State's own institutions, its statistical offices, its electoral commissions, its courts and its civil service, rather than to build works itself.

Measurement and reporting. Its annual Human Development Report introduced the Human Development Index, which measures development by health, education and income rather than by national income alone. That is not law, and it matters to law, because it reframed what the right to development in [Treatment of Aliens and Diplomatic Protection] and the article 55 purposes are measured against.