A Summer at the UNDP

Since I wrote the final post last summer, I suppose it's appropriate to kick off this summer with the first one. This year, I'm in New York, working with another intergovernmental organization, the United Nations. As with everything at the UN, there are a lot of acronyms to describe exactly where I'm working: I'm at the UNDP (UN Development Programme), in the BDP (Bureau of Development Policy), in the PG (Poverty Group), and working primarily on Legal Empowerment issues (sometimes shortened to LE).

It's a very exciting time for Legal Empowerment at the UNDP--the Commission on Legal Empowerment of the Poor just launched its final report today. The Commission was independent, but hosted by the UNDP--it was co-chaired by Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and the economist Hernando de Soto. At the core of the report are four pillars: Property Rights, Labor Rights, Business Rights, and Access to Justice and Rule of Law. The main idea behind Legal Empowerment is that given the right opportunities--whether by formalizing land ownership, providing accessible dispute resolution, or ensuring effective legal systems--the marginalized and vulnerable groups of the world (an estimated 4 billion people that are excluded from the rule of law) can pull themselves out of poverty. Basically, Legal Empowerment says the world's poor don't need aid, they need opportunity in the form of legal, political, and ownership systems that work for them and put them on equal footing with the elite. After years of meetings and many revisions, the report is out, and the Commission has made its recommendations. Now is a crucial time as policy makers and country offices at UNDP determine how to proceed, utilizing Legal Empowerment's concepts and methodologies to promote development in line with the UNDP's Strategic Plan.

I feel that I am very much on the cutting edge of this new terrain in development--so far I've been in contact with country offices across Africa, Asia, and Eastern Europe, helping to coordinate their country-level efforts with the BDP, UNDP's policy center. One of my biggest tasks so far has been to develop a database of Legal Empowerment projects going on around the world, both in progress and in the pipeline. This serves dual purposes: it helps to raise partner and donor awareness, which can lead to direct project support, and it also provides a model for other country offices who are looking for programming best-practices in specific areas.

I attended the launch this afternoon, and it was an amazing event. Dignitaries and press were there from all over the world. I got to hear Madeleine Albright and Hernando de Soto speak about legal empowerment, along with Naresh Singh, the Executive Director of the Commission, Kemal Dervis of the UNDP, and Mike Bishop, a writer for The Economist, acting as moderator for the expert panel. I got to meet and speak briefly with both Dr. de Soto and Secretary Albright(here's a picture of me with her: I'm the one with the goofy smile). I was very happy for the opportunity to see and hear great minds elaborate on Legal Empowerment of the Poor around the world, and was more than impressed with what they had to say.

So far it's been a great summer, and I'm less than a month in.