The 2011 Human Development Report argues that the urgent global challenges of sustainability and equity must be addressed together – and identifies policies on the national and global level that could spur mutually reinforcing progress towards these interlinked goals. Bold action is needed on...

This paper explores the opportunities for a ‘just transition’ to low carbon and sustainable energy systems; one that addresses the current inequities in the distribution of energy benefits and their human and ecological costs. In order to prioritize policies that address energy poverty...

Commonly available survey data for developing countries often do not include income or expenditure data. This data limitation puts severe constraints on standard poverty and inequality analyses. We provide a simple approach to simulate household income based on publicly available Demographic and...

It is widely accepted that country-averages of income, literacy, life expectancy and other indicators conceal widespread human deprivation and inequality. The measures of human development based on these indicators are also averages, and therefore mask disparities in the overall population....

This paper examines levels and trends in human development in the 27 European Union Member States and four of the EU’s nearest neighbours (Iceland, Switzerland, Norway and Turkey). Its starting point is the UNDP Human Development Index but the paper goes beyond the HDI in three main ways....

What are the underlying drivers of human development? This essay argues that long-term human development, in incomes, social conditions, security and so on, is fundamentally driven by capitalist dynamics and state functioning. The big issue is not state versus market, or growth versus equity, or...

While everyone agrees that GDP per capita is an inadequate measure of a country’s overall “development” it is difficult to specify what, if anything, should take its place as a useful single summary number (or even just ranking). The Human Development Index is a prominent alternative which...