Sustainable Development In A Dynamic World Transforming Institutions Growth And Quality Of Life

TheWorld Development Report 2003addresses how to lift from poverty the three billion people now living in severe deprivation. It also explores how to improve the quality of life for everybody today and for the two billion more who will join mankind in the next thirty years. Substantial increases in growth and productivity will be necessary to achieve this goal. The current scale of economic activity and speed of change is such that ecosystem and social structures cannot keep up. TheReportputs forth two main messages: the first point is that enhancing prosperity and reducing poverty requires better care of the planet's ecosystem and social fabric. And secondly, that stronger collective action at all levels--from local to global--is essential for generating and scaling up the institutions that can transform growth.

This book is directly available from the publisher VES MIR Publishers 9a, Kolpachniy pereulok Moscow, 101831 Russia Three billion people will be added to the world's population over the next 50 years and 2.8 billion people today already live on less than $2 a day almost all in developing countries. Ensuring these people have access to productive work and a better quality of life is the core development challenge of the first half of this century. Growth could itself be jeopardized over the longer term, unless a transformation of society and the management of the environment are addressed integrally with economic growth. Now in its 25th edition, this year's 'World Development Report' examines, over a 50 year period, the relationship between competing policy objectives of reducing poverty, maintaining growth, improving social cohesion, and protecting the environment. The 'World Development Report 2003' emphasizes that many good policies have been identified but not implemented due to distributional issues and barriers to developing better institutions. The Report reviews institutional innovations that might help overcome these barriers and stresses that ensuring economic growth and improved management of the planet's ecosystem requires a reduction in poverty and inequality at all levels: local, national, and international. As in previous editions, the 'World Development Report 2003' contains an appendix of selected indicators from the 'World Development Indicators'."

Three billion people will be added to the world's population over the next 50 years and 2.8 billion people today already live on less than $2 a day-almost all in developing countries. Ensuring these people have access to productive work and a better quality of life is the core development challenge of the first half of this century. Growth could itself be jeopardized over the longer term, unless a transformation of society and the management of the environment are addressed integrally with economic growth. Now in its 25th edition, this year's World Development Report examines, over a 50 year period, the relationship between competing policy objectives of reducing poverty, maintaining growth, improving social cohesion, and protecting the environment. The World Development Report 2003 emphasizes that many good policies have been identified but not implemented due to distributional issues, and barriers to developing better institutions. The Report reviews institutional innovations that might help overcome these barriers and stresses that ensuring economic growth and improved management of the planet's ecosystem requires a reduction in poverty and inequality at all levels: local, national, and international. If such an accord makes sense, then the outline above will require more careful work over the next few years, to develop an implementable program to adjust to contingencies, without undermining the promise of the accord. As in previous years, the report contains an appendix of selected indicators from the World Development Indicators.

This CD-ROM (single user version) provides a range of international economic and social data from the annual World Development Report series. It contains HTML text files of the Reports from 1978 to 2001, as well as colour pdf versions of the 2002 and 2003 Reports. The contents are fully indexed and cross-referenced for easy searching. The CD-ROM also includes selected data from the World Development Indictors 2002, with data export options for use in other applications such as spreadsheets and databases. A multi-user version of this CD-ROM is also available (ISBN 0821352008).

Towards Sustainable Well-Being examines existing efforts and emerging possibilities to improve upon gross domestic product as the dominant indicator of economic and social performance. Contributions from leading international and Canadian researchers in the field of beyond-GDP measurement offer a rich range of perspectives on alternative ways to measure well-being and sustainability, along with lessons from around the world on how to bring those metrics into the policy process. Key topics include the policy and political impacts of major beyond-GDP measurement initiatives; the most promising possibilities and policy applications for beyond-GDP measurement; key barriers to introducing beyond-GDP metrics; and complementary measures to ensure new measurements are not merely calculated but taken into account in policymaking. The book highlights a distinction between a reformist beyond-GDP vision, which seeks to improve policymaking and quality of life within existing political and economic institutions, and a transformative vision aiming for more fundamental change including a move beyond economic growth. Illustrating the many advances that have occurred in Canada and internationally, Towards Sustainable Well-Being proposes next steps for both the reformist and transformative visions, as well as possible common ground between them in the pursuit of sustainable well-being.

This book brings together multiple critical assessments of the current state and future visions of global development studies. It examines how the field engages with new paradigms and narratives, methodologies and scientific impact, and perspectives from the Global South. The authors focus on social and democratic transformation, inclusive development and global environmental issues, and implications for research practices. Leading academics provide an excellent overview of recent insights for post-graduate students and scholars in these research areas.