Publication

HUMAN DEVELOPMENT REPORT 2005
INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION AT A CROSSROADS:
AID, TRADE AND SECURITY IN AN UNEQUAL WORLD



Five years have passed since the world's governments signed the Millennium Declaration. The Declaration offers a bold new vision for reducing global poverty and inequality, backed by a set of targets - the Millennium Development Goals (MDGS) - for advancing human development.The deadline for achieving the MDGs is 2015. But at the start of the 10-year countdown to that deadline, most countries are off track for most of the targets. The world is heading for a heavily sign-posted human development failure - a failure that enhanced international cooperation could help to avert.

This year's Human Development Report takes stock of human development, including progress towards the MDGs. Looking beyond statistics, it highlights the human costs of missed targets and broken promises. Extreme inequality between countries and within countries is identified as one of the main barriers to human development-and as a powerful brake on accelerated progress towards the MDGs.

New approaches to international cooperation are vital if the promise of the Millennium Declaration is to be realized. Practical action is needed to make the next 10 years a "decade for development". Focusing on aid, trade and security, three of the central pillars of international cooperation, Human Development Report 2005 sets out a bold analysis of the problems and identifies solutions. It argues that rich countries need to move beyond encouraging words to align their policies with the commitments made in the Millennium Declaration.

The analysis includes:
A comprehensive overview of developments in international development assistance. The Report looks at the critical role of aid in supporting human development, assesses the performance of individual donors and sets out an agenda for improving aid quality.

A critical review of progress in the Doha "Development Round" of trade negotiations and an analysis of wider structural forces that marginalize many of the world's poorest countries. The Report demonstrates how unfair trade rules reinforce an unequal pattern of globalization, while emphasizing problems that go beyond the rules.

New research on the links between violent conflict and human development. Looking beyond a narrow security focus, the Report examines the human development costs of violent conflict, looks at strategies for conflict prevention and provides a critical assessment of institutional problems in post-conflict reconstruction.

For more information and past issues
visit UNDP HDR website http://hdr.undp.org