According to this report stemming from the July 2000 Okinawa Summit, 1.2 billion people are estimated to live on less than $1 per day, and nearly 3 billion people, worldwide, live on less than $2 a day. This 23-page report examines the roles which the World Bank, IMF, and Multilateral Development Banks play "at the country level, where they provide policy advice, and financial and technical...

Released on Monday July 12, the tenth edition of the United Nation Development Programme's (UNDP) Human Development Report has garnered considerable attention from the international press all week. The report ranks 174 countries on quality of life indicators such as life expectancy, wealth, and literacy, ranking Canada at the top and Sierra Leone at the bottom. The report pays particular attention...

The United Nations Development Programme's Human Development Report Office provides two useful selections from its Human Development Report 1997. Overview of HDR 1997 is a detailed summary of the contents of the report, discussing world poverty and a six point strategy for poverty reduction. HDR 1997 Rankings contain Human Development Index, Gender-Related Development Index and Gender Empowerment...

Released on July 10, the latest edition of the United Nation Development Programme's (UNDP) Human Development Report ranks 162 countries on quality-of-life indicators such as life expectancy, wealth, and literacy. It also includes analysis of the progress of countries towards meeting international development targets as well as assessing the technology achievements of 72 countries. This year,...

The notion of human development is one that is quite old, even if it has not always gone by that name. The United Nations understands human development to be about “creating an environment in which people can develop their full potential and lead productive, creative lives in accord with their needs and interests”. In this way, of course, many ancient city-states and other such communities of...

Tuesday, October 17, 2000, was the eighth annual observance of the UN's International Day for the Eradication of Poverty. The Website dedicated to this observance serves as a gateway to a wealth of UN and UN-sponsored reports, articles, and data relating to the First United Nations Decade for the Eradication of Poverty 1997-2006. The site also links to relevant data from other sources like the...

The International Development Association (IDA) is a program of the World bank, and since 1960 has aimed to help the very poorest countries, by "help[ing] people help themselves and their environment by providing resources, sharing knowledge, building capacity and forging partnerships in the public and private sectors." At the same time, the World Bank is working to engage in development that...

While there is a great deal of scholarly and informed analysis of the various public policy issues within the city of New York, there is much less coverage of the area of upstate New York. Stepping into that literature gap is this recent report from the Brookings Institution's Metropolitan Policy group. Released in September 2004, this 20-page report by Rolf Pendall and Susan Christopherson...

In 1976, Dr. Muhammad Yunus lent a small amount of money (approximately $27) to a group of 42 women near his home in the port city of Chittagong in Bangladesh. Out of this rather inauspicious beginning, the roots were planted for the Grameen Bank (Grameen means village in Bengali), an organization that has made over $4 billion in small loans to poor Bangladeshis in an effort to provide credit, or...

In August, the US Census Bureau released newly-compiled data on income and poverty as part of the Small Area Income and Poverty Estimates (SAIPE) program. The aim of the program is to provide more current estimates of selected income and poverty statistics than the most recent decennial census by using data from states, counties, and school districts. The newest data tables online from SAIPE are...