Reports and Publications

Methodology Papers

This technical paper proposes two new indices that measure gender equality and women’s empowerment. The first focuses on the status of women relative to men through measuring gender gaps in four dimensions of gender equality (the Global Gender Parity Index or GGPI). The second focuses on women’s empowerment in the same four dimensions as well as the added dimension of freedom from violence (the Women’s Empowerment Index or WEI).

Global Reports

The 2025 Human Development Report explores the implications of artificial intelligence for human development and the choices we can make to ensure that it enhances human capabilities. Rather than attempting to predict the future, the report argues that we must shape it—by making bold decisions so that AI augments what people can do.

Background Papers

Providing global public goods, such as health security and climate resilience, has become increasingly urgent in the face of global challenges. This paper examines the critical role of multilateral development banks and official development assistance (ODA) in addressing these challenges.

Background Papers

This background paper provides a case study from a project led by The Woolf Institute that combined news media analysis tools, stakeholder interview methods and simulation technologies to shed light on (and help to mitigate) the dynamics of polarization and conflict in Northern Ireland, the Balkans and South Sudan.

Human Development Perspectives

Background Papers

This paper is intended to identify both barriers to AI deployment at scale in developing countries and the types of regulatory and public policy actions that can best accelerate the appropriate use of AI to improve health care in developing countries. While AI technologies hold great potential for improving health care around the globe, they cannot be considered a panacea for solving global health challenges. Scaling up AI technologies has risks and trade-offs.

Global Reports

The 2023/24 Human Development Report assesses the dangerous gridlock resulting from uneven development progress, intensifying inequality, and escalating political polarization, that we must urgently tackle. The report emphasizes how global interdependence is being reconfigured and proposes a path forward where multilateralism plays a pivotal role.

Background Papers

This paper discusses possible reasons for the global deterioration in social attitudes despite greater economic prosperity, wider dissemination of technology and reductions in poverty. This deterioration manifests in the form of deeper political polarization, less trust in institutions and lower tolerance for dissenting views and opinions.