Human Development Report 2000

Human rights and human development share a common vision and a common purpose—to secure, for every human being, freedom, well-being and dignity. Divided by the cold war, the rights agenda and development agenda followed parallel tracks. Now converging, their distinct strategies and traditions can bring new strength to the struggle for human freedom. Human Development Report 2000 looks at human rights as an intrinsic part of development—and at development as a means to realizing human rights.

Achieving rights for all people in all countries will require action and commitment from the major players in society. Tracing the struggle for human rights as common to all people, the Report concludes that the advances in the 21st century will be won by confronting entrenched economic and political interests.

The research and critical positioning of this Report shows that:

• Human freedom is the common purpose and common motivation of human rights and human development;
• The 20th century’s advances in human rights and human development were unprecedented—but there is a long unfinished agenda;
• The 21st century opens with new threats to human freedoms; and
• Bold new approaches are needed to achieve universal realization of human rights in the 21st century—adapted to the opportunities and realities of the era of globalization, to its new global actors and to its new global rules.