Entering the 21st Century: World Development Report, 1999/2000 00

"This report, the twenty-second in the annual series, addresses the changing development landscape of the early 21st century, particularly the broad pragmatism that moves beyond economic growth to encompass important social goals--reduced poverty, improved quality of life, enhanced opportunities for better education and health, and more. Experience teaches that sustainable progress towards these goals requires integrated implementation and that progress must be firmly anchored in processes that are open, participatory, and inclusive. The report focuses on two clusters of change--globalization and localization--recognizing them as forces that bring new opportunities but also raise new or greater challenges in terms of economic and political instability. Containing this instability and providing an environment that will help implement a development agenda will be major institutional challenges. The discussion focuses on three main aspects of globalization: trade in goods and services, international flows of capital, and global environmental issues. The examination then shifts to three aspects of localization: the decentralization of political power to subnational levels of government, the movement of population and of economic energy toward urban areas, and the provision of essential public services in growing cities. To discuss the appropriate institutional response, the report draws on an array of national examples and cross-country empirical evidence."--World Bank summary