This paper is motivated by sustained interest in the capabilities approach to welfare economics combined with the paucity of economic statistics that measure capabilities at the individual level. Specifically, it takes a much discussed account of the normatively desirable capabilities...

This article reviews various strands of development policies such as employment and basic needs policies, structural adjustment policies, human rights and human development policies, as well as policies emanating from the so-called Washington Consensus leading to current globalization practices....

Capabilities and human rights are closely related and share common commitments to freedom and justice as central political objectives. Much of the literature on this relationship has focused on defining the overlaps and differences between them as theoretical concepts. This paper explores a...

Feminist studies have developed several tools to assess the gender impact of public policy and of budgets in particular. In this paper we introduce an innovative approach to the gender auditing of public budgets inspired by the capability approach. First, we expand the scope of the assessment of...

The capabilities approach has consistently promoted literacy as an important social entitlement, a key determinant of well-being and a goal of human development. This significance of literacy is reflected in the United Nations Development Programme Human Development Reports. Nevertheless, as...

Denis Goulet (1931-2006) was a pioneer of human development theory and a founder of work on 'development ethics' as a self-conscious field that treats the ethical and value questions posed by development theory, planning, and practice. The present paper looks at aspects of Goulet's work in...

Both the Gender-related Development Index (GDI) and the Gender Empowerment Measure (GEM) represent a “false start” in measuring gender equality. This is because they do not measure gender (in)equality as such, but an odd combination of absolute welfare levels and gender equality that is not...

The label 'human security' has attracted much attention since the 1994 Human Development Report, but there are numerous conflicting definitions and agendas, and widespread scepticism. The Ogata-Sen Commission report Human Security Now has proposed a unified yet flexible definition and agenda....