Shaping human development: which way next?

The United Nations Development Programme's concept of human development, fi rst presented in the 1990 Human Development Report (HDR), distilled the ess ence of rite evolution in development thinking and effectively, reoriented the debate by bringing people back into the centre of development. There ha s been much discussion of the HDRs in the literature and the reports have a lso evolved somewhat over the years. But the basic concept of human develop ment seems to have become stagnant and the reports have not lived rip to th eir own initial promises. We feel that if the reports are to maintain their position as frontrunners of the development debate, then they must explore further the relationship between the widening of human choices and the fra mework within which these choices nl-e exercised, as alluded to in the firs t report itself Furthermore, the reports should choose to focus explicitly on the role of the richest people and countries in promoting human developm ent, the plight of the poor-est people and countries, and on the growing di sparities in today's world. The global perspective afforded by such a focus could be coupled to all exploration of the norms and values on which human development should be based This should lead to an evolving and improved c onception of human development that better reflects current global realitie s and future global aspirations.