Migration is a controversial issue. Reading of the popular media in virtually any country, alongside an array of opinion polls suggest that residents see controls on immigration as essential and that people would prefer to see existing rules on entry tightened rather than relaxed. This stands in...

In the continuing discussion on migration and development, the vulnerability of all migrant groups to exploitation and mistreatment in host countries has been highlighted along with an emphasis on protecting their rights. However, xenophobia has not yet received explicit attention although...

Controls on human mobility and efforts to undermine them continue to shape South Africa’s politics, economy, and society. Despite the need for improved policy responses to human mobility, reform is hindered by lack of capacity, misinformation, and anti-migrant sentiments within and outside of...

This paper explores the opportunities for a ‘just transition’ to low carbon and sustainable energy systems; one that addresses the current inequities in the distribution of energy benefits and their human and ecological costs. In order to prioritize policies that address energy poverty...

It is widely accepted that country-averages of income, literacy, life expectancy and other indicators conceal widespread human deprivation and inequality. The measures of human development based on these indicators are also averages, and therefore mask disparities in the overall population....

While everyone agrees that GDP per capita is an inadequate measure of a country’s overall “development” it is difficult to specify what, if anything, should take its place as a useful single summary number (or even just ranking). The Human Development Index is a prominent alternative which...

This paper seeks to critically examine recent debates on global governance, albeit from a human development perspective. In doing so it identifies and describes two important principles for building institutions for the advancing of human development: what may be termed the imperative of...

This paper uses a unique data set of the Human Development Index to describe long-run human development trends for 111 countries, from 1970 to 2005. The first part of the paper shows trends by region, period and index subcomponent. We find that 110 of the 111 countries show progress in their HDI...

This paper contains three important contributions to the literature on international migrations. First, it compiles a new dataset on migration flows and stocks and on immigration laws for 14 OECD destination countries and 74 sending countries for each year over the period 1980-2005. Second, it...

This paper argues that mobility and migration have always been an intrinsic part of human development. Migration can be considered as a fundamental capabilities-enhancing freedom itself. However, any meaningful understanding of migration needs to simultaneously analyse agency and structure....