This paper examines levels and trends in human development in the 27 European Union Member States and four of the EU’s nearest neighbours (Iceland, Switzerland, Norway and Turkey). Its starting point is the UNDP Human Development Index but the paper goes beyond the HDI in three main ways....

Eradicating poverty everywhere is more than a moral imperative - it is a practical possibility. That is the most important message of the Human Development Report 1997. The world has the resources and the know-how to create a poverty-free world in less than a generation. The Report focuses not...