The UN System Chief Executives Board for Coordination (CEB) furthers coordination and cooperation on a whole range of substantive and management issues facing the United Nations system.

The CEB brings together on a regular basis the executive heads of the funds, programmes, agencies and offices of the UN system, under the chairmanship of the UN Secretary-General. In addition to its regular reviews of contemporary political issues and major concerns facing the UN system, on the basis of recommendations from bodies reporting to it, the CEB approves policy statements on behalf of the UN system as a whole.

The CEB is supported by three High-Level Committees, HLCP, HLCM and UNDG. The division of responsibilities between the three bodies can be summarized as follows:

HLCP: Promotion of global policy coherence, including the development of common policy tools, including toolkits, in addition on its work on global policy and programme issues and global public goods.

HLCM: Harmonization of business practices across the system, including general management issues, thus ensuring overall managment coherence from global to country level.

UNDG: Promotion of coherent and effective oversight, provision of guidance and capacity building with country level partners, coordination of UN development operations at country level, addressing policy guidance issues related to country level operations, including the implementation of the TCPR resolutions, and support to the RC system.

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In October 2007 the Chief Executives Board and the UN Development Group agreed that the UNDG would merge into the CEB structure. This agreement was formalized during the CEB meeting on 28 April 2008.

The aim of the integration is to further enhance the coherent development of policies for the UN system in the field of international cooperation. The UNDG has become the third "pillar" under the CEB, representing a high level committee on country-level operations, next to the two existing CEB pillars: the High-Level Committee on Programmes (HLCP) and the High-Level Committee on Management (HLCM).

The UNDG continues to focus on providing practical guidance and tools to UN country teams for enhancing coherence in the UN development system's country operations. In view of this new situation, the UNDG reviewed its existing working groups and adopted a more streamlined set of working groups as well as a revised draft set of working methods.