HUMAN DEVELOPMENT AND SOCIAL POWER

In South Asia and beyond, human development continues to be in a state of crisis. Each successive Human Development Report (HDR) and the pervasive global failure to achieve the Millennium Development Goals are constant reminders of this crisis. An equally, and even more distressing dimension of human development is its great unevenness. Even in countries with high levels of human development it was noted that gender differences were significant. Levels of educational attainment and incomes remain significantly unequal between social groups, constituted along other categories of difference such as race, ethnicity and religion, as do levels of economic and political participation.