Human Development has been advocated as the prime development goal since 1990, when the publication of the first UNDP Human Development Report proposed that development should improve the lives people lead in multiple dimensions instead of primarily pursuing economic growth. This approach forms the foundation of Advancing Human Development: Theory and Practice. It traces the evolution of approaches to development, showing how the Human Development approach emerged as a consequence of defects in earlier strategies.

Advancing Human Development argues that Human Development is superior to measures of societal happiness. It investigates the determinants of success and failure in Human Development across countries over the past forty years, taking a multidimensional approach to point to the importance of social institutions and social capabilities as essential aspects of change. It analyses political conditions underlying the performance of Human Development, and surveys global progress in multiple dimensions such as life expectancy, infant mortality, and education and outcomes, whilst reflecting on dimensions which have worsened over time, such as rising inequality and declining environmental conditions. These deteriorating conditions inform Advancing Human Development's account of the challenges to the Human Development approach, covering the insufficient attention paid to macroeconomic conditions and the economic structure needed for sustained success.

About the Author:
Frances Stewart, Emeritus Professor of Development Economics, University of Oxford, UK, Gustav Ranis, , Emma Samman, Research Associate, Growth and Inequality Programme, Overseas Development Insitute, UK

Frances Stewart is Emeritus Professor of Development Economics, University of Oxford. She was Director of the Oxford Department of International Development (1993-2003), and the Centre for Research on Inequality, Human Security and Ethnicity (2003-2010). She has an honorary doctorate from the University of Sussex; she received the Mahbub ul Haq prize for outstanding contributions to services to Human Development 2009; and the Leontief Prize for Advancing the Frontiers of Economic Thought, from Tufts in 2013. Her prime recent research interests are horizontal inequalities and human development. Among many publications, she is the leading author of Horizontal Inequalities and Conflict: Understanding Group Violence in Multiethnic Societies.

Gustav Rannis (deceased) was the Frank Altschul Professor Emeritus of International Economics at Yale University. He was Director of the Yale Center for International and Area Studies from 1995 to 2003, a Carnegie Corporation Scholar from 2004 to 2006, Director of the Economic Growth Center at Yale from 1967 to 1975, Assistant Administrator for Program and Policy at USAID from 1965 to 1967, and Director of the Pakistan Institute of Development Economics from 1958 to 1961. Professor Ranis was author, co-author or editor of more than 20 books and 300 articles on theoretical and policy-related issues of development.

Emma Samman is a Research Associate in the Growth, Poverty and Inequality programme at the Overseas Development Institute. Previously she has worked at Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex; Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI); Trinity College, The University of Dublin, and International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI). Her research expertise includes the human development approach; analysis of empowerment and subjective wellbeing; and the design and analysis of household surveys. She holds a DPhil in Development Studies from University of Oxford and an MSc in Economic History of Developing Countries from London School of Economics.