ABSTRACT
The notions of human development and capability (HD-CA1) as espoused by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) have challenged the dominance of purely economic conceptions of development and poverty based on individualistic and market-related approaches. Initially elaborated by an independent think tank, the Human Development Report Offi ce (HDRO), HD-CA seems to have steadily infl uenced the organizational and ideological goals of UNDP, and arguably has been crucial in revamping and strengthening the role of this institution in the UN System, especially in relation to more infl uential development agencies, notably the World Bank. The UNDP today explicitly endorses a view of development based on concerns for the well-being and dignity of people and evaluates the role of development in terms of securing people‘s freedoms to pursue the lives they have reasons to value; arguably placing concerns for ethical norms above the cognitive norms of the discipline of economics.
