Human Development Report + 50

Towards modelling relationships between poverty and the environment

Poverty is the most fundamental economic and social problem facing humankind. Even when it does not kill, poverty is a basic deprivation that stunts the very possibility of human development.

The International Futures project, based at the University of Denver, has established a partnership with Frederick S. Pardee and the RAND Pardee Center for further development and use of the International Futures modelling system, with a focus on the Global Human Condition. Their joint goal is to build and apply the best quantitative support system possible for the study and enhancement of the longer-term future of the human condition. One of the products under this collaboration will be the production of a series of volumes under the general heading Prospects for Human Development, with Volume 1: Reducing Global Poverty slated for publication in early 2007.

IISD has been contracted by the University of Denver to contribute to this effort, particularly in relation to the role of the natural environment in supporting human development. For this first volume, its specific tasks have been specified as:

  1. Mapping an approach for framing relationships between environmental variables and human well-being, with special attention to poverty.

  2. Reviewing relevant literature with attention to elaborating the historical relationships between the environment and poverty and to providing a foundation for forecasting the impact of environmental variables on poverty levels in the first half of the century.

  3. Analyzing the potential for the International Futures (IFs) modelling system to provide forecasts of poverty influenced by environmental variables (and optionally suggesting ways to enhance that potential).

  4. Using the above foundations, writing a portion of the chapter of the volume "Prospects for Human Development: Poverty."

For more information, please contact IISD Senior Researcher, Dale S. Rothman.