Human Development is not about the rise and fall of national incomes. Rather, it is about people, their desire and struggle to expand their freedoms and lead lives they value.
According to the United Nations, “it is about creating an environment in which people can develop their full potential and lead productive, creative lives in accord with their needs and interests. People are the real wealth of nations. … It is thus about much more than economic growth, which is only a means—if a very important one—of enlarging people’s choices.”
Fundamental to enlarging these choices is building human capabilities. The potential of people to use technology to improve their livelihoods is massive, but it must be properly harnessed and appropriately incorporated into each community’s social, cultural, historic, economic and political context.
Our work overseas is shaped by this belief that human development is the true measurement of progress and change.