The ART Global Initiative (Articulation of Territorial and Thematic Networks of Cooperation for Human Development) is UNDP's international cooperation initiative promoting the formulation and implementation of a legal, programmatic, operational and administrative framework - the ART Framework-Programme - in the countries that request it.

The ART Initiative facilitates the complementarities and strategic and operational coordination among different development actors and programmes on the field: national programmes, local collectives, decentralised cooperation actors, agencies of the UN System, civil society organisations, universities, NGOs, private sector, among others. It supports national policies and local development processes prioritised by the countries themselves to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and the local levelimplementation of the Accra and Paris Declarations.

The ART Initiative is currently in 18 countries in Asia, Africa, Latin America, the Balkans and the Mediterranean. It promotes, encourages and supports the establishment of decentralised cooperation partnerships between regional and local governments in the North and the South as well as South-South cooperation partnerships for development on specific initiatives. As a result of these efforts, more than 600 partnerships have been established through various programmes.

It also involves regional and local communities in development processes and promotes a new kind of multilateralism in which the United Nations System works with governments to ensure the active participation of regional and local governments, local communities and social stakeholders in the South and the North.