Human Development in the Muslim World

‘Human Development’ is very much a product of evolving thinking about international development and human progress, more broadly. From the 1950s through to the 1970s, the central paradigm guiding most efforts to lift countries out of poverty was ‘economic development’, with operational links above all to state planning and investment in infrastructure. Thus large infrastructure projects were the early hallmarks of development institutions like the World Bank. However, by the 1980s underlying assumptions had begun to change and the post Cold War era stood old paradigms on their heads. The former jargon of first, second and third worlds no longer makes sense and ‘north and south’ is almost as problematic. In essence, both key thought leaders and people working on the ground shifted their emphasis to human beings as both engine and beneficiary of development. The concept of ‘human development’ increasingly took center stage.