Human Development in a Changing World

The 1992 Human Development Report is the third in an annual series sponsored by UNDP since 1990. The central thesis of these reports is that it is people who matter--beyond the confusing maze of GNP numbers, beyond the curling smoke of industrial chimneys, beyond the endless fascination with budget deficits and balance of payments crises--it is people who matter. People must be at the centre of our development debate--what really counts is how they participate in economic growth and how they benefit from it. Production processes are indispensable but they cannot be allowed to obscure human lives. The focus of our reports is on those human lives--how they change over time, how they contribute to national and global economic opportunities, how they share these opportunities, how the range of people's choices can be measured--whether economic or political, whether individual or national. The study of people, in national and global settings, is our central preoccupation and our overwhelming mandate.