Arab Human Development Report 2005

In addition to the global Human Development Report which I previously wrote a posting about, an Arab Human Development Report (data covering 2005 - executive summary here & release material in Swedish here) has been recently launched, for the 4th time. As usual the report is authored by Arab researchers and adresses development challenges specific to the region. This year's edition focuses on the situation of women in the Arab world, which is still highly unequal. Thus countries fail to fully utilize the potential of half of the society in a way as to forward the needs of society as a whole and break with poverty, segregation and lack of rights and access to even basic services for it's citizens. Some progress may be noted however, also - credit should be given when due!, even if some changes are still in the cosmetic range of i e political participation.

Another interesting feature of this year's edition is the update on the impact of the previous reports, covering issues such as knowledge and governance - which have been given large attention and seen as partly very controversial.