UNDP's mission is to "help countries in their efforts to achieve sustainable human development by assisting them to build their capacity to design and carry out development programmes in poverty eradication, employment creation and sustainable livelihoods, the empowerment of women and the protection and regeneration of the environment, giving first priority to poverty eradication. UNDP also acts to help the United Nations family to become a unified and powerful force for sustainable human development and works to strengthen international cooperation for sustainable human development.

UNDP, at the request of governments and in support of its areas of focus, "assists in building capacity for good governance, popular participation, private and public sector development and growth with equity, stressing that national plans and priorities constitute the only viable frame of reference for the national programming of operational activities for development within the United Nations system".

UNDP Focus Areas comprise Poverty, Gender, Environment, and Governance. Since the 1992 UN Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), UNDP has focused on assisting countries in realizing the goals of Agenda 21 by "helping countries adopt integrated approaches that focus on managing natural resources to improve the livelihoods of people living in poverty. Priority is given to preventive approaches. Care is taken to ensure that actions to cope with immediate crises do not interfere with the long-term sustainability of resources and development processes".

UNDP is one of the GEF implementing agencies, primarily responsible for implementing technical assistance and capacity building programmes. UNDP also manages the Small Grants Programme which supports community-based NGO projects related to the GEF's global concerns. UNDP-GEF programmes under International Waters include a large number of regional and global projects.

UNDP is also involved in the International Waters-Learn Project (IW-Learn), "an innovative distance learning program whose purpose is to build a global knowledge community for the protection of transboundary water systems - its endangered oceans, river basins, and coasts". IW-Learn is an NGO network operating through the Tides Center, San Francisco and Washington. It was launched with a $1.8 million grant from the Global Environment Facility (GEF) and is jointly implemented by UNDP, UNEP and the World Bank. The GEF inter-agency International Waters Task Force will serve as the IW-Learn Steering Committee. During 2000, its first year of full activity, IW-Learn will:

• Develop a dedicated space for teaching and learning on the World Wide Web (an extranet);
• Train and provide support for an "Implementation Team" working in about 20 developing countries;
• Co-develop workshops, conferencing, knowledge management activities with the World Bank;
• Offer the second round of a distance Masters program in partnership with University of London; and
• Develop a strategic plan for building a "knowledge community" with partners in Africa and Latin America.

The IW-Learn web site "will serve as a physical office, a distance learning classroom, a training locale, and a guest house for visitors." IWL-Learn is "an innovative inter-institutional partnership to build a web-based 'knowledge community' among transboundary waters projects. The purpose is to expand knowledge-sharing so that people who live in and manage transboundary water systems can better learn from and teach each other".