The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) is the UN's global development network, advocating for change and connecting countries to knowledge, experience and resources to help people build a better life. UNDP operates in more than 166 countries, working with them in close collaboration on their own solutions to global and national development challenges.

UNDP’s central mandate is to help developing countries build their own national capacity to achieve sustainable human development. As countries develop local capacity, they are more proficient in drawing on the people of UNDP and our wide range of partners. In this and other ways, UNDP helps developing countries to attract and use development aid effectively. In all our activities, UNDP encourages the protection of human rights and the empowerment of women.

At the United Nations Millennium Summit in 2000, world leaders placed development at the centre of the global agenda by adopting the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which set clear targets for reducing poverty, hunger, disease, illiteracy, environmental degradation and discrimination against women by 2015. UNDP’s global network connects countries to the knowledge and resources needed to achieve the MDGs, while it also facilitates its partners and the UN System in raising awareness and tracking progress towards these goals. UNDP has been operating in Suriname since 1994 supporting the Surinamese Government and the people to achieve national goals. UNDP in Suriname has 4 areas: Democratic Governance

Poverty Reduction, Energy and Environment, Crisis Prevention and Recovery.