United Nations Human Development Report and the Need for International Democratization

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United Nations Human Development Report and the Need for International Democratization

The 2002 United Nations Human Development Report (UNHDR) is the result of many years’ study of international human progress and development. As declared in the first page of the report, "[This report] is about how political power and institutions, formal and informal, national and international, shape human progress". This statement outlines the principal theme of power dynamics and fragmentation (politics) on varying levels, public and private, rich and poor, male and female, etc. - that runs consistently throughout the work, analyzing global trends of political participation and democracy.

According to the UNHDR, human development is politically determined, not only socially and economically so as represented in many studies. The Report operates under the basic assumption that the current world is more free and more just than ever before, but that democracy (including structures of political participation, economic justice, health and education, and peace and personal security) is necessary to improve human development and to protect the freedom and dignity of all people.

Although the Report is outwardly concerned with all democratic countries, industrialized or not, it is most significant to developing democracies where necessary reforms in human development have not yet been realized. As expressed by lead author, Sakiko Fukuda-Parr, this year’s Report emphasizes the growing divisions between "those who prosper... and those who do not... between the powerful and the powerless, between those who welcome the new global economy and those who demand a different course."

At times it seems as though both sufficient coherence and evide...

... middle of paper ...

... whole the UNHDR does an thorough job at citing the important role of democratic governance with regard to human development, it also was blind to one major issue: the difference between theoretical and practical democracy. The successful theoretical democracy primarily discussed in this Report is undoubtedly not the same democracy practiced by 82 "fully democratic" countries in the world.Although the Report does make note of the susceptibility of many democratic institutions to corruption and inequality, the point was not made clear enough that these are two very separate and distinct forms of democracy. No matter the stylistic flaws, though, this Report truly creates a clear perspective on the state of current international human development, and rightfully emphasizes the immediate need for foreign aid, improved living standards, and international democratization.

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