Human Development Reports 1990-2020
Human Development Report 2020
The Next Frontier: Human Development and the Anthropocene
Thirty years ago, UNDP created a new way to conceive and measure progress. Instead of using growth in GDP as the sole measure of development, we ranked the world’s countries by their human development: by whether people in each country have the freedom...Read more
Human Development Report 2019
Beyond income, beyond averages, beyond today: Inequalities in human development in the 21st century
In every country many people have little prospect for a better future. They are without hope, purpose or dignity, watching from society’s sidelines as they see others pulling ahead to ever greater prosperity. Worldwide many have escaped extreme poverty...Read more
Statistical Update 2018
Human Development Indices and Indicators
Human Development Indices and Indicators: 2018 Statistical update is being released to ensure consistency in reporting on key human development indices and statistics. It includes an analysis of the state of human development—snapshots of current...Read more
Human Development Report 2016
Human Development for Everyone
Universalism is at the core of the human development approach. Human freedoms must be enlarged for all human beings—not a few, not the most, but all, in every corner of the world—to be able to realize their full potential now and in the future. The same...Read more
Human Development Report 2015
Work for Human Development
From a human development perspective, the notion of work is broader and deeper than that of jobs or employment alone. The jobs framework fails to capture many kinds of work that have important human development implications —as with care work, voluntary...Read more
Human Development Report 2014
Sustaining Human Progress: Reducing Vulnerabilities and Building Resilience
The Human Development Report Office (HDRO) is pleased to inform that the 2014 Human Development Report 'Sustaining Human Progress: Reducing Vulnerability and Building Resilience' was launched in Tokyo, on 24 July 2014. The 2014 Report highlights the need...Read more
Human Development Report 2013
The Rise of the South: Human Progress in a Diverse World
The 21st century is witnessing a profound shift in global dynamics, driven by the fast-rising new powers of the developing world. China has overtaken Japan as the world’s second biggest economy, lifting hundreds of millions of people out of poverty in...Read more
Human Development Report 2011
Sustainability and Equity: A Better Future for All
The 2011 Human Development Report argues that the urgent global challenges of sustainability and equity must be addressed together – and identifies policies on the national and global level that could spur mutually reinforcing progress towards these...Read more
Human Development Report 2010
The Real Wealth of Nations: Pathways to Human Development
The first Human Development Report in 1990 opened with the simply stated premise that has guided all subsequent Reports: “People are the real wealth of a nation.” By backing up this assertion with an abundance of empirical data and a new way of thinking...Read more
Human Development Report 2009
Overcoming barriers: Human mobility and development
Migration, both within and beyond borders, has become an increasingly prominent theme in domestic and international debates, and is the topic of the 2009 Human Development Report (HDR09). The starting point is that the global distribution of capabilities...Read more
Human Development Report 2007/8
Fighting climate change: Human solidarity in a divided world
Climate change is the defining human development challenge of the 21st Century. Failure to respond to that challenge will stall and then reverse international efforts to reduce poverty. The poorest countries and most vulnerable citizens will suffer the...Read more
Human Development Report 2006
Beyond scarcity: Power, poverty and the global water crisis
Throughout history water has confronted humanity with some of its greatest challenges. Water is a source of life and a natural resource that sustains our environments and supports livelihoods – but it is also a source of risk and vulnerability. In the...Read more
Human Development Report 2005
International cooperation at a crossroads: Aid, trade and security in an unequal world
This 2005 Human Development Report takes stock of human development, including progress towards the MDGs. Looking beyond statistics; it highlights the human costs of missed targets and broken promises. Extreme inequality between countries and within...Read more
Human Development Report 2004
Cultural Liberty in Today’s Diverse World
Accommodating people’s growing demands for their inclusion in society, for respect of their ethnicity, religion, and language, takes more than democracy and equitable growth. Also needed are multicultural policies that recognize differences, champion...Read more
Human Development Report 2003
Millennium Development Goals: A Compact Among Nations to End Human Poverty
The new century opened with an unprecedented declaration of solidarity and determination to rid the world of poverty. In 2000 the UN Millennium Declaration, adopted at the largest-ever gathering of heads of state, committed countries — rich and poor — to...Read more
Human Development Report 2002
Deepening Democracy in a Fragmented World
This Report is about politics and human development. It is about how political power and institutions—formal and informal, national and international—shape human progress. And it is about what it will take for countries to establish democratic governance...Read more
Human Development Report 2001
Making New Technologies Work for Human Development
The 2001 Report, like all previous Human Development Reports, is about people. It is about how people can create and use technology to improve their lives. It is also about forging new public policies to lead the revolutions in information and...Read more
Human Development Report 2000
Human Rights and Human Development
Human rights and human development share a common vision and a common purpose—to secure, for every human being, freedom, well-being and dignity. Divided by the cold war, the rights agenda and development agenda followed parallel tracks. Now converging,...Read more
Human Development Report 1999
Globalization with a Human Face
Global markets, global technology, global ideas and global solidarity can enrich the lives of people everywhere. This year’s Report argues that globalization is not new, but that the present era of globalization, driven by competitive global markets, is...Read more
Human Development Report 1998
Consumption for Human Development
The 1998 Report investigates the 20th century's growth in consumption, unprecedented in its scale and diversity. The benefits of this consumption have spread far and wide. More people are better fed and housed than ever before. Living standards have...Read more
Human Development Report 1997
Human Development to Eradicate Poverty
Eradicating poverty everywhere is more than a moral imperative - it is a practical possibility. That is the most important message of the Human Development Report 1997. The world has the resources and the know-how to create a poverty-free world in less...Read more
Human Development Report 1996
Economic Growth and Human Development
The 1996 Report opens with a fundamental statement: "Human development is the end - economic growth a means." The Report argues that economic growth, if not properly managed, can be jobless, voiceless, ruthless, rootless and futureless, and thus...Read more
Human Development Report 1995
Gender and Human Development
Human Development, if not engendered, is endangered. That is the simple but far-reaching message of Human Development Report 1995. The Report analyses the progress made in reducing gender disparities in the past few decades, highlighting the wide and...Read more
Human Development Report 1994
New Dimensions of Human Security
The 1994 Report introduces a new concept of human security, which equates security with people rather than territories, with development rather than arms. It examines both the national and the global concerns of human security. The Report seeks to deal...Read more
Human Development Report 1993
People's Participation
People's participation is becoming the central issue of our time. The democratic transition in many developing countries, the collapse of many socialist regimes, and the worldwide emergence of people's organizations- these are all part of a historic...Read more
Human Development Report 1992
Global Dimensions of Human Development
The world has a unique opportunity in the current decade to use global markets for the benefit of all nations and all people. Human Development Report 1992 looks at the workings of these global markets-at how they meet, or fail to meet, the needs of the...Read more
Human Development Report 1991
Financing Human Development
The lack of political commitment not of financial resources, is often the real cause of human neglect. That is the main conclusion of Human Development Report 1991. The Report is about financing human development. A single powerful idea runs through it-...Read more
