This year's Human Development Report explains why we have less than a decade to change course and start living within our global carbon budget, and how climate change will create long-run low human development traps, pushing vulnerable people into a downward spiral of deprivation.

The world's demand for food is expected to double within the next 50 years, while the natural resources that sustain agriculture will become increasingly scarce, degraded, and vulnerable to the effects of climate change. In many poor countries, agriculture accounts for at least 40 percent of GDP and 80 percent of employment. At the same time, about 70 percent of the world's poor live in rural areas and most depend on agriculture for their livelihoods. 'World Development Report 2008' seeks to assess where, when, and how agriculture can be an effective instrument for economic development, especially development that favors the poor. It examines several broad questions: How has agriculture changed in developing countries in the past 20 years? What are the important new challenges and opportunities for agriculture? Which new sources of agricultural growth can be captured cost effectively in particular in poor countries with large agricultural sectors as in Africa? How can agricultural growth be made more effective for poverty reduction? How can governments facilitate the transition of large populations out of agriculture, without simply transferring the burden of rural poverty to urban areas? How can the natural resource endowment for agriculture be protected? How can agriculture's negative environmental effects be contained? This year's report marks the 30th year the World Bank has been publishing the 'World Development Report'.

Climate change is the greatest challenge facing humanity at the start of the 21st Century. Failure to meet that challenge raises the spectre of unprecedented reversals in human development. This year s Human Development Report explains why we have less than a decade to change course and start living within our global carbon budget. The Report explains how climate change will create long-run low human development traps, pushing vulnerable people into a downward spiral of deprivation. Because climate change is a global problem with global causes and effects, it demands a global response with countries acting on the basis of their historic responsibility and capabilities.

"The theme of The World Development Report 2007 is youth - young people between the ages of 12 to 24. As this population group seeks identity and independence, they make decisions that affect not only their own well-being, but that of others, and they do this in a rapidly changing demographic and socio-economic environment. Supporting young people's transition to adulthood poses important opportunities and risky challenges for development policy. Are education systems preparing young people to cope with the demands of changing economies? What kind of support do they get as they enter the labor market? Can they move freely to where the jobs are? What can be done to help them avoid serious consequences of risky behavior, such as death from HIV-AIDS and drug abuse? Can their creative energy be directed productively to support development thinking? The report will focus on crucial capabilities and transitions in a young person's life: learning for life and work, staying healthy, working, forming families, and exercising citizenship. For each, there are opportunities and risks; for all, policies and institutions matter."

An integrative rights-based approach to human development in Africaby Dejo Olowu2009ISBN: 978-0-9814124-6-7Pages: x 322Print version: AvailableElectronic version: Free PDF available.

The United Nations World Water Development Report, published every three years, is a comprehensive review providing an authoritative picture of the state of the world's freshwater resources. It offers best practices as well as in-depth theoretical analyses to help stimulate ideas and actions for better stewardship in the water sector. It is the only report of its kind, resulting from the collaboration and contributions of the 26 UN agencies, commissions, program, funds, secretariats and conventions that have a significant role in addressing global water concerns. The news media are full of talk of crises - in climate change, energy and food and troubled financial markets. These crises are linked to each other and to water resources management. Unresolved, they may lead to increasing political insecurity and conflict. Water is required to meet our fundamental needs and rising living standards and to sustain our planet‘s fragile ecosystems. Pressures on the resource come from a growing and mobile population, social and cultural change, economic development and technological change. Adding complexity and risk is climate change, with impacts on the resource as well as on the sources of pressure on water. The challenges, though substantial, are not insurmountable. The Report shows how some countries have responded. Progress in providing drinking water is heartening, with the Millennium Development Goal target on track in most regions. But other areas remain unaddressed, and after decades of inaction, the problems in water systems are enormous and will worsen if left unattended. Leaders in the water sector can inform decisions outside their domain and manage water resources to achieve agreed socioeconomic objectives and environmental integrity. Leaders in government, the private sector and civil society determine these objectives and allocate human and financial resources to meet them. Recognizing this responsibility, they must act now! Two volume set: 336

The goals of the second volume of the AHDR – Arctic Human Development Report: Regional Processes and Global Linkages – are to provide an update to the first AHDR (2004) in terms of an assessment of the state of Arctic human development; to highlight the major trends and changes unfolding related to the various issues and thematic areas of human development in the Arctic over the past decade; and, based on this assessment, to identify policy relevant conclusions and key gaps in knowledge, new and emerging Arctic success stories. The production of AHDR-II on the tenth anniversary of the first AHDR makes it possible to move beyond the baseline assessment to make valuable comparisons and contrasts across a decade of persistent and rapid change in the North. It addresses critical issues and emerging challenges in Arctic living conditions, quality of life in the North, global change impacts and adaptation, and Indigenous livelihoods. The assessment contributes to our understanding of the interplay and consequences of physical and social change processes affecting Arctic residents’ quality of life, at both the regional and global scales. It shows that the Arctic is not a homogenous region. Impacts of globalization and environmental change differ within and between regions, between Indigenous and non-Indigenous northerners, between genders and along other axes.