About Us

Bhutan became the 132nd member of the United Nations in September 1971, thereby accepting the values and principles of the organization. The Office of the United Nations in Bhutan was established in early 1974. Since then, the country has been home to UN agencies, funds, and programmes that work as a team to respond to national development needs and improve the economic and social conditions of people of Bhutan.

Six of the agencies, funds and programmes have formal resident representation while others support the country from their regional offices or the UN headquarters without a field presence. The resident UN agencies form the UN Country Team (UNCT), which is led by the UN Resident Coordinator.

With the objective to make UN assistance to Bhutan more effective, the UNCT in close partnership with the government of Bhutan and non-resident agencies signed a common Country Programme Acion Programme (cCPAP). The cCPAP includes the activities of 14 UN agencies supporting Bhutan. cCPAP which is based on the UN Development Assistance Framework (UNDAF) and Common Country Assessment (CCA)identifies five priority areas for work in Bhutan between 2008-2012. These are poverty reduction; health; education, good governance and environment and disaster risk management.