United Nations System

Operational Cooperation with the United Nations System

UNESCO has long-standing collaborative experience and working relations with almost all of the funds, programmes and specialized agencies of the UN System, whereby working together, they give member countries the benefit of their combined strengths.

UNESCO seeks partnerships with the UN system, based on its areas of expertise defined by its mandate, especially in implementing all agreed commitments, goals and targets on international development objectives including Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

In 2001, UNESCO joined the United Nations Development Group (UNDG), which main objective is to improve the coherence and effectiveness of UN's development programmes at the country level and to strengthen the UN country teams (UNCTs).
Recently at the 34th meeting of the UNDG, Mr Matsuura expressing his strong support for enhanced UN system-wide coherence, underlined the importance of maintaining “unity in diversity”, arguing that the main strength of the UN, in comparison to the Bretton Woods Institutions (BWI) lies in its rich and diverse sectoral expertise.

Our website
This website is designed to shed light over UNESCO’s operational cooperation with the United Nations Funds, Programmes and Specialized Agencies by providing a summary of the following:

• Policy Dialogue and Partnership Strategy: UNESCO's strategy and framework for cooperation with the UN system
• Main Areas of Cooperation: Some of the areas in which UNESCO cooperates with the UN system or can potentially seek future cooperation
• Success Stories: A selected few examples of the long list of collaborative projects between UNESCO and other UN Agencies