United Nations Development Programme Strategic Plan (2022-2025)

Key Chapter Title List

1. Overview
2. Creating Value
3. Strategic Framework
4. Pathway to Human Development
5. Strategic Objectives
6. Prosperity for All
7. Effective Governance
8. Crisis Resilience
9. Healthy Planet

Document Introduction

This report presents the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Strategic Plan for 2026-2029. Over the past six decades, UNDP has contributed to improving the lives and advancing human development for millions globally through large-scale, integrated support. This plan aims to continue this mission, supporting countries in advancing to higher levels of human development while protecting the planet. At its core, it defines the strategic direction around four strategic objectives—Prosperity for All, Effective Governance, Crisis Resilience, and Healthy Planet—leveraged by three accelerators (digital and AI transformation, gender equality, sustainable financing). All actions are grounded in a commitment to human rights and the principle of leaving no one behind.

The development of this strategic plan reflects a rigorous, evidence-driven process and extensive partnership consultation. UNDP conducted an unprecedented breadth of consultations, engaging over 600 partners across 116 countries. The plan's design draws on insights and data from several key assessments, including the independent evaluation and midterm review of the 2022-2025 Strategic Plan, an independent review of UNDP's business model, and a survey of 11,000 development partners across 147 countries. This evidence shows that partners highly value UNDP's long-term relationships built on mutual trust, its broad reach across levels and institutions, and its ability to deliver integrated solutions. The assessments also indicate that the continued decline in core resources poses a challenge to UNDP's ability to maintain flexibility, apply integrated approaches, and foster lasting change.

The core strategic framework of this plan aims to focus on fewer but more integrated outcomes, concentrating on what UNDP does best: achieving systemic change through integrated solutions driven by national priorities. The four strategic objectives and three accelerators together form an interconnected framework designed to advance human development while reducing planetary pressure, with progress measured by a planetary pressure-adjusted Human Development Index. This framework capitalizes on the organization's strengths and allows for tailored development solutions based on country contexts.

The report details the specific connotations and pathways for action under the four strategic objectives. The Prosperity for All objective aims to go beyond minimum poverty lines to build vibrant, resilient economies and societies, focusing on creating opportunities for productive assets, decent work and livelihoods, and enhancing resilience to shocks through risk reduction, access to essential services, and social protection. The Effective Governance objective is dedicated to developing responsible, people-centered, rights-based governance, using systems thinking, innovation, and strategic foresight to help countries develop more agile, forward-looking governance and policymaking, and strengthening support in political dialogue, electoral processes, and crisis contexts. The Crisis Resilience objective emphasizes protecting development gains and reducing risk from day one of a crisis to lay the foundation for recovery, and significantly increasing resilience by integrating risk awareness into all work. The Healthy Planet objective positions UNDP as a critical link connecting planetary and development issues, committed to translating global commitments such as the Paris Agreement and the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework into effective local action, and partnering to jointly invest in actions that promote prosperity and protect the planet.