Introduction by Amartya Sen

In 1990 public understanding of development was galvanized by the appearance of the first Human Development Report. Led by the visionary Mahbub ul Haq, it had a profound effect on the way policy-makers, public officials and the news media, as well as economists and other social scientists, view societal advancement. Rather than concentrating on only a few traditional indicators of economic progress (such as gross national product per capita), “human development” accounting proposed a systematic examination of a wealth of information about how human beings in each society live and what substantive freedoms they enjoy.

Related Subject(s): Economic and Social Development