Ahead of the Curve: a series on development pioneers at the United Nations.

A new series in the UN Chronicle will highlight the major intellectual contributions and policy consequences of work undertaken by major researchers who worked with the United Nations system during their careers. This series of articles will profile key personalities who have made major contributions to the intellectual leadership of the Organization in the area of economic and social development.

The United Nations has often made proposals for economic policy--national and international--well ahead of other international organizations, including the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. Examples include the proposals for loans at concessional interest rates to developing countries in the 1950s, special measures for the least developed countries in the 1960s, adjustment with a human face and measures for accelerated debt relief in the 1980s, priorities for institutional change and more gradual transition in the countries of the former Soviet Union in the 1990s.

Several of these were initially opposed by the Bretton Woods institutions, but later accepted. Details can be found in the volumes of the United Nations Intellectual History Project (UNIHP)--co-directed by...