Towards a Human Development Strategy

Abstract

Paper prepared for the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Human Development Report 1992. The purposes of this short monograph are, first, to introduce the general reader to the basic concepts of human development, seen as an all-embracing strategy of development, and, second, to devise guidelines for use by national policy makers, development specialists and international advisors in constructing development strategies which give high priority to human development. The intention is not to present a blueprint for human development that can be applied mechanically in every country but to raise the issues that must be addressed and to offer suggestions as to how these issues can be resolved. The point of departure for each country necessarily is distinct and reflects its history, culture, resource endowment and political institutions. Thus each country faces a unique set of problems, but also a unique set of opportunities and a unique set of feasible policies. There is more than one path to human development, and hence the need to consider alternative strategies, but any successful strategy will have to pay careful attention to the structure of incentives that guides economic activity, the allocation of public expenditure and the institutional arrangements that determine the distribution of wealth and income and the vulnerability of various sections of the population to events which can threaten their livelihood and perhaps even their life.