The UN and Development: From Aid to Cooperation (United Nations Intellectual History Project Series) - Softcover

Stokke, Olav

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0253220815 ISBN 13: 9780253220813

Publisher: Indiana University Press, 2009

Synopsis

The UN and Development provides the first comprehensive overview of the development policies and activities of the United Nations system from the late 1940s to the present. With an explicit focus on the history of the ideas that have been generated, institutionalized, and implemented by UN organizations, this book examines changing trends in development paradigms from the concept of technical assistance to underdeveloped countries, as they were called in the late 1940s, to development cooperation in the 21st century. Olav Stokke traces this fascinating story and demonstrates the UN's essential role and its future challenges in aiding the least developed countries and the globe's billion poorest inhabitants.

About this title

About the Author

Olav Stokke is Senior Researcher at the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs and former editor of the Nordic journal Forum for Development Studies. His books include Perspectives on European Development Co-operation, with Paul Hoebink; Food Aid and Human Security, with Edward Clay; and Policy Coherence in Development Co-operation, with Jacques Forster.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

The UN and Development

From Aid To Cooperation

By Olav Stokke

Indiana University Press

Copyright © 2009 United Nations Intellectual History Project
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-0-253-22081-3

Contents

List of Boxes and Tables, vii, 
Foreword Louis Emmerij, Richard Jolly, and Thomas G. Weiss, xi, 
Preface and Acknowledgments, xvii, 
List of Abbreviations, xxi, 
Introduction, 3, 
Part 1. The Emergence of International Development Assistance, 29, 
1. Pre-Aid Traditions and Ideas and the Institutional Heritage, 33, 
2. The Expanded Programme of Technical Assistance, 43, 
3. A UN Fund for Economic Development, 83, 
4. First Steps Down the Road: What Can the Footprints Tell?, 115, 
Part 2. The Formative Years, 131, 
5. The First Development Decade: An Instrument of Persuasion? 137, 
6. The Second Development Decade, 157, 
7. The United Nations Development Programme, 1966–1981, 186, 
8. The World Food Programme, 1961–1981: Surplus Food for Development and Relief, 251, 
9. The 1960s and 1970s: Perspectives on Development, 301, 
Part 3. The Lost Decade and a New Beginning, 315, 
10. Visions and Priorities for the 1990s: The United Nations Strategy for the Fourth Development Decade, 331, 
11. The Revival of the Social and Human Dimensions of Development, 343, 
12. Evolving Priorities, Patterns, and Trends, 1982–2005, 365, 
13. Food Aid: From Development to Humanitarian Relief, 419, 
14. The Long Road toward the Millennium Development Goals, 442, 
15. The Contribution of the UN System to International Development Cooperation, 481, 
Appendix: A Bird's-Eye View of ODA to Developing Countries and Multilateral Institutions, 511, 
Notes, 573, 
Index, 689, 
About the Author, 722, 
About the United Nations Intellectual History Project, 723, 

CHAPTER 1

Pre-Aid Traditions and Ideas and the Institutional Heritage

* The Traditions

* The Ideas

* The Institutional Heritage

A variety of traditions — each with a primary purpose of its own, a particular mode of work, and different institutional frameworks — may have inspired the UN and its member governments to take on the new commitment of providing international development assistance. Some of these traditions shared basic values and norms; some did not. This calls for a separate discussion of the influence traditions and ideas may have exerted when the idea of development assistance was first generated and institutionalized within the UN system.

The ideas pertaining to development aid in the reports, resolutions, and declarations of the League of Nations and the early years of the United Nations are a second source of inspiration. Another source of inspiration was the Marshall Plan — the massive transfers of resources by the United States to help European countries rebuild their war-torn economies after World War II.

The various traditions, ideas, institutional heritages, and more recent experiences that will be briefly outlined in this chapter represent possible sources and inspirations of what later became international development assistance. This chapter, therefore, is meant as the first step in an effort to identify the main sources of this idea and their main characteristics. In chapter 4 we will look for footprints of these possible sources in the implementation of the idea of international aid.

The Traditions

The traditions included here cover organized activities initiated in the North that were intended

Edition details

• Publisher: Indiana University Press
• Publication date: 2009
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0253220815
• ISBN 13: 9780253220813
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 752