The purpose of this report is to reflect on UNDP’s experience of development cooperation over the past 50 years, and to extract some common themes and general lessons about development cooperation for the future.

The report makes the case that development is a long-term proposition and is seldom amenable to short-term solutions. Certainly, truly transformational change at the national or subnational level takes time to achieve. If it is to be sustainable and sustained, it must be nationally owned and achieved. Outsiders cannot deliver such transformational change, but they can support it in a variety of ways, especially by helping to develop national capacity. UNDP believes that such international partnerships can play an important role in this regard.

The report documents seven cases where this has been achieved over a period of time. Taking 10–20 years as its frame of reference, the report demonstrates that development can be successful on this basis – even strikingly successful in some cases.