help individuals and societies cope with adverse events (chapter 2). Together, they provide a checklist to judge whether public policies are people-driven and whether broader human development goals are being adequately met. Committing to collective action. Meeting today’s challenges requires collective action (chapters 4 and 5). When people act collectively, they marshal their individual capabilities and choices to overcome threats, and their combined resilience deepens development progress and makes it more sustainable. The same can be said of states acting collectively to reduce vulnerabilities to transborder threats by provisioning global public goods. Despite the many uncertainties that surround us, one thing seems clear: A positive vision of the public domain will depend in large measure on the successful provisioning of public goods, both national and global. All this is feasible. Financial systems can be better regulated. Trade talks can be unblocked, as the recent World Trade Organization agreement at Bali testifies.57 Corporate conduct around the world can be subject to common codes and standards. Climate change can be mitigated. But only if citizens and states everywhere recognize the value of cross-border collaboration and global public goods—and accept that people’s well-being cannot be left to the vagaries of the market or to national responses alone. A shared planet where individual decisions have the ability to influence others and the future of all humankind requires accepting and promoting social norms that embody mutual responsibility for each other. It also requires global, national and local obligations to prevent vulnerability and assist those who suffer from adverse events. The historic Millennium Declaration signed by 189 countries in 2000 and the Millennium Development Compact a little later are probably the clearest expressions of such global solidarity. Whether expressed in global conversations among governments on the sustainable development goals or in a growing sense of ecological citizenship at the Rio + 20 Global Conference in June 2012, this solidarity needs to be further nurtured and interpreted in the context of vulnerability, as a collective responsibility to help others in need.58
Coordinating between states and social institutions. It is also time to look at broader architectural questions and revisit the dynamic between states and markets, and between countries and global forces, to examine the scope of private and public spaces. Today’s vulnerability is deep-seated and systemic. Global connections across multiple fronts have melted large parts of the formerly more separate national policy domains into one large and still expanding global public domain. Yet this domain has been dominated by excessive belief in the value and adequacy of unfettered markets. Polanyi’s caution—about the social destruction that unregulated markets can cause—is as relevant today as when he wrote The Great Transformation in 1944.59 Required now is his anticipated response of state intervention to protect people and societies from the perils of believing in self-regulating markets. Individuals cannot flourish alone. Indeed, they cannot function alone. When they are born, family provides their life support. In turn, families cannot function independent of their societies. Policies to improve social norms, social cohesion and social competences become important so that governments and social institutions can act in concert to reduce vulnerabilities. And when markets and systems themselves produce vulnerabilities, governments and social institutions must guide markets to limit vulnerability and help people where markets fail to do so. Policies are only as good as their results. No matter how elegant policies appear on paper, they are effective only if they work in practice. Many factors can affect a political economy, and some, such as social cohesion or citizen trust in government, are touched on in this Report. Beyond these specific concerns, however, the quality of governance is important for the effectiveness of policies. People everywhere want government to work better—to deliver quality services, to have less corruption and to increase commitment to the rule of law. This Report does not attempt to discuss such major ideas in depth other than to highlight that they are extremely important for human development outcomes.
When people act collectively, they marshal their individual capabilities and choices to overcome threats, and their combined resilience deepens development progress and makes it more sustainable
* * * Over the last decades most countries have made considerable progress in human development. But rising or high vulnerability raises Chapter 1 Vulnerability and human development | 29