A planetary emergency and the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic have depleted the world’s natural and human resources and changed the landscape of development. Up to 1 billion people could be living in extreme poverty by 2030 unless the world seizes this opportunity for a decisive push towards the Sustainable Development Goals.

UNDP works with countries to expand people’s choices for a fairer, sustainable future, to build the world envisioned by the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development with planet and people in balance. The challenge of the next four years is to accelerate and scale up development results significantly, bringing the Goals back within reach. Towards that end, UNDP will support change in three directions:

• Structural transformation, particularly green, inclusive and digital transitions;

• Leaving no one behind, a rights-based approach centred on human agency and human development;

• Building resilience to respond to systemic uncertainty and risk.

These are huge, whole-of-society puzzles that require collective efforts and integrated approaches. UNDP offers a unique network of global reach and local presence, sectoral expertise and trusted partnerships to help solve these puzzles. In the next four years, UNDP will work with countries to expand human capabilities through which 100 million people can escape multidimensional poverty; support access to clean energy for 500 million people; support 800 million people to participate in elections, many for the first time; and promote the investment of over $1 trillion of public expenditure and private capital in the Sustainable Development Goals.

This Strategic Plan describes the future direction of UNDP, continuing on from the Strategic Plan, 2018-2021. UNDP will continue to work through its six signature solutions on poverty and inequality, governance, resilience, environment, energy and gender equality. These are where countries’ needs are greatest and where the capabilities and position of UNDP within the United Nations development system best equip the organization to work. Learning from the lessons of the last four years, the signature solutions will be adapted to better match countries’ evolving priorities. Collaborating across the strengthened United Nations system and beyond, UNDP will develop integrated approaches that apply combinations of solutions for greater impact. Powerful enablers – strategic innovation, digitalization and development finance – will further accelerate and scale results.

To be an effective partner in transformative change, UNDP has to build not just new skills, like systems thinking, but a new culture: one that embraces complexity, actively manages risk, continually adapts and seeks to learn alongside delivering results. In an uncertain world, its business model must empower UNDP to respond to partners with the flexibility and at the scale they expect. In this way UNDP not only supports countries’ progress towards the 2030 Agenda, but also fosters collective investment in building global public goods, contributing to a fairer, sustainable future for all.