BOOK REVIEW: UNDP Human Development Report 2000

Focus on Human Rights

In 1990, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) launched its first annual Human Development Report, which became the principal composite index of comparative national achievements in human development. The UNDP Human Development Report 2000, proposes a bold and compelling approach to 21st century development theory that advocates a human rights-based approach to human development.

This year, Canada, Norway, and the United States of America are ranked the highest in the Human Development Index (HDI), whereas Sierra Leone, Niger, and Burkina Faso rank at the bottom. The Report notes that countries that are infamous for human rights atrocities rank among the lowest in terms of human achievement. In addition to global inequalities in human development, wide disparities are also evident in the Asia-Pacific region: for example, Singapore's HDI value is determined at 0.881 compared with a value of 0.484 for Lao People's Democratic Republic.

The Report expounds the causal and mutually reinforcing links between human rights and human development. It argues that human rights bring principles of accountability and social justice to the process of human development, and further advocates for the domain of human rights to include a broad range of freedoms, encompassing not only civil and political, but social and economic rights as well. While acknowledging that the 20th century's achievements in human rights are unprecedented, the Report warns of the "long unfinished agenda" and summons stronger international action to alleviate mass poverty and offset growing global inequalities.

The Report predicates that "inclusive democracy" is the best form of governance in promoting human rights and the only form of political regime compatible with respecting all five categories-economic, social, political, civil, and cultural of freedoms. Neither merely democratic transition nor political elections will, however, guarantee freedom: democracy must be supported by appropriate policy intervention, institutional and social capacity building, and nurturing of a civil society in order to become sustainable and protect human rights.

The Report establishes eradication of poverty as a major challenge to both human rights and development. It explores how poverty leads to deprivations of civil, political, economic, and social rights, and advances human rights as both an end and a means of escaping poverty. Social and economic goals including a decent standard of living, adequate nutrition and health care, and education are common to both human rights and development. The Report thus reasons that the struggle to achieve economic and social rights should not be disassociated from the struggle to achieve civil and political rights.

The importance of developing statistical indicators is highlighted as a powerful tool in human rights advocacy and in building "a culture of accountability" for human rights. Indicators are critical in empowering people to identify human rights violations, to assess progress, and to hold critical actors to account. The final chapter sets forth priorities for national action in promoting human rights and human development and concludes with "a vision for the 21st century": a century for worldwide spread of freedoms.

Asserting that "any society committed to improving the lives of its people must also be committed to full and equal rights of all", the UNDP Human Development Report 2000 seeks to deliver the concept of human rights beyond its cold war political rhetoric and integrate it into the broad-based development agenda. Focusing on common motivation and basic compatibility of human rights and human development, the arguments advanced in the Report are compelling and serve as an important and pioneering contribution to 21st century development thinking.

© 1997-2001 United Nations ESCAP.