Since its headline-making debut, the Human Development Report has become an essential resource for development specialists, economists, and political scientists around the world. While previous Human Development Reports focused on investment in people, the 1993 Report not only updates the findings of the earlier volumes, but shifts the focus towards the "other" side of human development--mobilizing and utilizing human potential. The Report surveys the instruments for enhancing and encouraging participatory patterns of development, including privatization and participatory market structures, vertical and horizontal decentralization of government functions, devolution of government powers, enterprise decentralization, involvement of NGOs and other grass-roots organizations, and empowerment of people. It probes the vital connections between employment and development, and offers a global framework for employment that takes into account the growing pressure for international migration. In addition, it examines links between human development and international markets for ucts, capital, and labor, and presents updated human development indicators for more than 160 countries.

Work is constantly reshaped by technological progress. New ways of production are adopted, markets expand, and societies evolve. But some changes provoke more attention than others, in part due to the vast uncertainty involved in making predictions about the future. The 2019 World Development Report will study how the nature of work is changing as a result of advances in technology today. Technological progress disrupts existing systems. A new social contract is needed to smooth the transition and guard against rising inequality. Significant investments in human capital throughout a person’s lifecycle are vital to this effort. If workers are to stay competitive against machines they need to train or retool existing skills. A social protection system that includes a minimum basic level of protection for workers and citizens can complement new forms of employment. Improved private sector policies to encourage startup activity and competition can help countries compete in the digital age. Governments also need to ensure that firms pay their fair share of taxes, in part to fund this new social contract. The 2019 World Development Report presents an analysis of these issues based upon the available evidence.

The Human Development Report, now in its seventh edition, updates the unique Human Development Indicators comparing human development in most countries of the world, and the data tables on all aspects of human development. The special focus of this edition is on the important link between economic growth and human development. The Report maintains that the link is not automatic but can be established through proper policy management, arguing the case for initiating and accelerating economic growth and at the same time accelerating and sustaining human development in different parts of the world. The Report also maintains that the quality of growth is as important as its quantity; otherwise, growth can be jobless, voiceless, ruthless, rootless, and futureless. It identifies employment as an important instrument in translating the benefits of economic growth into people's lives.An indispensable resource for courses in international development, the Report ranks 174 countries according to the Human Development Index (HDI). It also gives the global ranking of more than 100 countries in terms of Gender-Related Development Index (GDI) and the Gender Empowerment Measure (GEM). The first index represents HDI, taking into account gender inequality in capabilities, and the second represents female opportunities in selected economic and political areas. New to this edition is the Capability Poverty Measure (CPM), which is used as an alternative to the traditional income poverty measure. The Report concludes that the future challenge is how to forge and sustain the desired kind of linkage between economic growth and human development in a globalized world which represents both opportunities and threats for the nations of the world.

Rising densities of human settlements, migration and transport to reduce distances to market, and specialization and trade facilitated by fewer international divisions are central to economic development. The transformations along these three dimensions density, distance, and division are most noticeable in North America, Western Europe, and Japan, but countries in Asia and Eastern Europe are changing in ways similar in scope and speed. 'World Development Report 2009: Reshaping Economic Geography' concludes that these spatial transformations are essential, and should be encouraged. The conclusion is not without controversy. Slum-dwellers now number a billion, but the rush to cities continues. Globalization is believed to benefit many, but not the billion people living in lagging areas of developing nations. High poverty and mortality persist among the world's 'bottom billion', while others grow wealthier and live longer lives. Concern for these three billion often comes with the prescription that growth must be made spatially balanced. The WDR has a different message: economic growth is seldom balanced, and efforts to spread it out prematurely will jeopardize progress. The Report: documents how production becomes more concentrated spatially as economies grow. proposes economic integration as the principle for promoting successful spatial transformations. revisits the debates on urbanization, territorial development, and regional integration and shows how today's developers can reshape economic geography.

The goals of the second volume of the AHDR – Arctic Human Development Report: Regional Processes and Global Linkages – are to provide an update to the first AHDR (2004) in terms of an assessment of the state of Arctic human development; to highlight the major trends and changes unfolding related to the various issues and thematic areas of human development in the Arctic over the past decade; and, based on this assessment, to identify policy relevant conclusions and key gaps in knowledge, new and emerging Arctic success stories. The production of AHDR-II on the tenth anniversary of the first AHDR makes it possible to move beyond the baseline assessment to make valuable comparisons and contrasts across a decade of persistent and rapid change in the North. It addresses critical issues and emerging challenges in Arctic living conditions, quality of life in the North, global change impacts and adaptation, and Indigenous livelihoods. The assessment contributes to our understanding of the interplay and consequences of physical and social change processes affecting Arctic residents’ quality of life, at both the regional and global scales. It shows that the Arctic is not a homogenous region. Impacts of globalization and environmental change differ within and between regions, between Indigenous and non-Indigenous northerners, between genders and along other axes.

Why are carefully designed, sensible policies too often not adopted or implemented? When they are, why do they often fail to generate development outcomes such as security, growth, and equity? And why do some bad policies endure? World Development Report 2017: Governance and the Law addresses these fundamental questions, which are at the heart of development. Policy making and policy implementation do not occur in a vacuum. Rather, they take place in complex political and social settings, in which individuals and groups with unequal power interact within changing rules as they pursue conflicting interests. The process of these interactions is what this Report calls governance, and the space in which these interactions take place, the policy arena. The capacity of actors to commit and their willingness to cooperate and coordinate to achieve socially desirable goals are what matter for effectiveness. However, who bargains, who is excluded, and what barriers block entry to the policy arena determine the selection and implementation of policies and, consequently, their impact on development outcomes. Exclusion, capture, and clientelism are manifestations of power asymmetries that lead to failures to achieve security, growth, and equity. The distribution of power in society is partly determined by history. Yet, there is room for positive change. This Report reveals that governance can mitigate, even overcome, power asymmetries to bring about more effective policy interventions that achieve sustainable improvements in security, growth, and equity. This happens by shifting the incentives of those with power, reshaping their preferences in favor of good outcomes, and taking into account the interests of previously excluded participants. These changes can come about through bargains among elites and greater citizen engagement, as well as by international actors supporting rules that strengthen coalitions for reform.