UNDP | Europe & CIS

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) is the UN's global development network, an organization advocating for change and connecting countries to knowledge, experience and resources to help people build a better life. UNDP in Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States is on the ground in 25 countries and territories in Central and Eastern Europe, the Caucasus and Central Asia.

UNDP works closely with national partners – including governments, civil society and the private sector – supporting country needs and priorities that fall into UNDP’s areas of expertise:

This includes working closely with countries in the region to make sure that the Millennium Development Goals are achieved by 2015.

Regardless of the area of work, UNDP’s underlying approach is the same: to support national capacities – because sustainable human development requires that a country lead its own development process and use its own institutions to plan, deliver and evaluate results.

The ideal end result is that countries can take care of their own development needs and that states are able to deliver quality public services, develop and regulate markets, provide justice and security, and promote and protect the rights of all people.

UNDP in the region is known as the Regional Bureau for Europe and CIS (“RBEC”) and consists of: country offices; headquarters in UNDP New York; and a regional centre in Bratislava with an office in Almaty, which administers UNDP’s regional programme and provides substantive support to country offices.

Working under a mandate issued by the United Nations Secretary-General, UNDP first set up offices and programmes in the region in 1992.