Occasional Papers

The Capability Approach and Human Development: Some Reflections

By: S. R. Osmani
2016
The human development discourse is conceptually underpinned by the capability approach. As such, a number of doubts and misgivings that have emerged over time regarding the capability approach has also caused a renewed soul-searching over the conceptual...Read more

Global Governance and Growth for Human Development

By: Stephany Griffith-Jones
2016
This paper analyses policies to enhance inclusive growth and human development through two key institutional dimensions: the articulation of multilateral, regional and national development banks, and the coordination of fiscal and monetary policies at...Read more

Gender Equality in Human Development – Measurement Revisited

By: Hsu, Yu-Chieh; Kovacevic, Milorad
2015
Gender equality and women’s empowerment are integral to human development. Since the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action in 1995, considerable progress has been made, yet in the mean while along with existing shortfalls, new and extensive...Read more

Gender Equality in Human Development – Measurement Revisited

By: Hsu, Yu-Chieh; Kovacevic, Milorad
2015
Gender equality and women’s empowerment are integral to human development. Since the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action in 1995, considerable progress has been made, yet in the mean while along with existing shortfalls, new and extensive...Read more

Work as Art: Links between Creative Work and Human Development

By: Patrick Kabanda
2015
Creative work has enhanced human development since early times; similarly, the latter can expand the former. But the links are not automatic. Creative work can be rife with exploitation and gender bias. Writers can advance human welfare, yet illiterate...Read more

Peace Work: Labour Markets, Work and Violence

By: Christopher Cramer
2015
Violence in its many forms—physical, psychological, structural—has profound and complex effects on socioeconomic development. If human development is regarded as the expansion of freedoms, then violence has pervasive restricting impacts on these that go...Read more

Population, Labour Force and Unemployment: Implications for the Creation of (Decent) Jobs, 1990-2030

By: David E. Bloom and Mathew J. McKenna
2015
We estimate that 734 million jobs will be required globally between 2010 and 2030 to accommodate recent and ongoing demographic shifts, account for plausible changes in labour force participation rates, and achieve target unemployment rates of at or...Read more

Organizing Informal Workers: Benefits, Challenges and Successes

By: Martha Chen, Chris Bonner and Françoise Carré
2015
The informal workforce represents more than half of all workers in most developing countries and a significant share of workers in developed countries. This paper summarizes the history and forms of organizing informal workers, providing a timeline of...Read more

Time Use Across the World: Findings of a World Compilation of Time Use Surveys

By: Jacques Charmes
2015
This paper is based on 102 time use surveys carried out in 65 countries. Reports of the surveys were mostly found on the websites of national statistical agencies or other official institutions. Access to micro-data was not necessary. Survey data have...Read more

Work and Human Development in a Deindustrializing World

By: Dani Rodrik
2015
Work is mostly unpleasant. Doing lots of unpleasant work is how countries get rich. And being rich is how more people get to do pleasant work. That pretty much sums up economic history from the perspective of ‘work for human development’.Read more