The Journal of Human Development . This year marks a milestone in Human Development Reports—10 years of a movement, a concept and in practice, a strategy towards people-centred  development. In celebration of this, the Human Development Report Office will launch the Journal of Human Development in January 2000. Call for Papers
 

The 1999 Human Development Report—  Globalization with a human face— will be launched on the 12th of July in London, UK, at Millbank Hall, Millbank Tower Media Centre, 21-24 Millbank, SW1P, at 10 a.m.; In New York, at the Oxford University Press Atrium, 198 Madison Av. (35th St.), 12.30 p.m. 
 

The First Global Forum on Human Development , 29-31 July 1999, will commence a series of annual conferences to exchange ideas and develop new avenues of research on the human development paradigm. 
 

The International Council on Social Welfare, a world organisation promoting social development, has awarded the René Sand Award to the  Human Development Report Team. Ms. Sakiko Fukuda-Parr, Director of the HDRO,  accepted the award in Paris on November 5th 1998. 
 

Symposium on "Human Development and Human Rights", 2-3 October, Oslo. Jointly sponsored by the Royal Ministry of ForeignAffairs, Norway, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, and the United Nations Development Programme
 

Human Development Report 98 global launch in the Hague on 9 September
  Create your own reports using the Human Development 1998 database For an in-depth study of human  development, read Background Papers 98,  a compilation of the actual research papers  that went into producing the Report

     The global launch for the Human Development Report 1998 kicked off on Sept. 9 at the Hague City Hall in the Netherlands, and in more than 100 capitals worldwide. 
     Planned events included a one-and-a-half day Symposium to debate the key messages of the Report, featuring interactive, roundtable discussions moderated by top thinkers and practitioners.
      In the Atrium, which was open to the public, visitors were able to purchase ecologically and socially-sound products at a consumer’s market; sit in on small workshops and discussion groups on consumption issues; and visit displays on development and the enviroment by dozens of non-governmental organizations.
      For more information, call the Department of Public Affairs, UNDP New York at (212) 906-5315.

Consumption for Human Development

      Despite a dramatic surge in global consumption -- with real expenditures doubling over the last 25 years -- more than one billion people still lack the opportunity to consume in ways that meet their basic needs.
      Others, especially in the industrial countries, are consuming in ways that cannot be long sustained environmentally or socially.
      The Human Development Report 1998 explores the complex issues behind these trends, questioning the economic, social and regulatory forces that perpetuate today’s problems.
      Seeking patterns of consumption that improve the lives of all people, the Report sets out an action agenda to bring about consumption that is shared, strengthening, socially responsible and sustainable.

Main Features of the Report
* An overview of changing consumption levels and patterns of the past 30 years -- not only of the basic essentials but also of new trends in developing countries, trade in brand name goods, advertising and the globalization of information.

* A spotlight on the environment, highlighting the stark inequalities between the rich who benefit from the consumption boom and the poor on whom the impacts of pollution, degradation and scarcity fall the hardest.

* Many practical examples of innovative policies and state-of-the-art technologies that are enabling developing countries to leapfrog into environmentally-friendly consumption patterns.

* A new measure of human poverty in industrial countries, focused on deprivation in longevity, functional literacy and economic provisioning as well as social exclusion. This new “HPI-2” index reveals some surprising contrasts of human poverty amidst economic affluence.
 

The Human Development Database provides for rapid retrieval and use of statistical information found in the highly acclaimed Human Development Report, for the study of demographic, social, economic and environmental issues of human development.  This database provides statistics in a user-friendly format that allows you to run and compile comprehensive reports.  Simply select one or more of 353 social indicators, select from 174 countries and/or 28 regional aggreagtes and run the report.  Print reports with graphs or prepare them for export in a spreadsheet format.
To obtain the database, please click on any of the following:

This valuable volume contains seven of the actual papers commissioned for the 1998 Human Development Report which focused on the theme of Consumption for Human Development.  These unique papers address the economic and political dimensions of human development.  This academic publication makes a significant contribution to the exciting world-wide debate that has emerged in the past several years on issues of human development.  To get a copy of this volume, please click on the following link and scroll down the page: