Led by Shelly Timpson, a retired UNDP resident representative, the three-member team also includes Elizabeth Stema Topolo, acting secretary of UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, and Vicotoria Tauli Corpaz, an expert on indigenous people, sources said.

Development works in the CHT hit snags after the abduction of three foreign nationals in February 2001. After a detailed risk assessment survey in the region, the UNDP had announced that it would resume development works there from July last. It also set up offices and appointed staffs in the three hill districts towards that end.

But the UN agency could not properly restart the works as Jyotirindria Bodhipriya Larma alias Shantu Larma, chairman of CHT Regional Council and chief of Parbatya Chatagram Jana Sanghati Samity (PCJSS), accused it of trying to exclude the regional and district councils from the development process. The regional council also sent a letter to UNDP Assistant Secretary General Hafiz Pasha alleging violations of the UN's development strategy for the indigenous people in the CHT by the UNDP country office.

The regional council alleged the UNDP tried to implement its projects in the CHT denying the 'hills reality'. The council also objected to the inclusion of Bangali settlers by the UNDP as beneficiaries of its projects.

The allegations, for all practical purposes, brought the UNDP development works in the CHT to a standstill. In response, the UNDP headquarters in New York decided to send the high-profile delegation to review the situation.

The team is scheduled to start visiting the three hill districts from January 8.

The UNDP informed the CHT Regional Council of the review team's visit by a letter addressed to Shantu Larma and received on December 3 last, council sources said.