Introduction
Every significant historic juncture provides a rationale to review and reassess the values, systems, and institutions that form the basis of contemporary societal organization. The beginning of the third millennium is no different, and presents an extraordinary opportunity to consider innovative solutions to many of the pressing problems confronting our modern world and global institutions. In this context, there is currently broad consensus around the view that the future success of the UN system, as it faces an ever more complex and demanding milieu, will depend upon its ability to embrace new thinking and realistic reforms. This theme was explored in considerable depth at a United Nations University conference entitled “On the Threshold of the New Millennium” held in Tokyo, which brought together leading thinkers to generate new insights and policy-oriented recommendations on the challenges faced by humanity and on the role of the United Nations in helping to address them. The conference provided a bridge between theory and practice through the engagement of governments, research think tanks, and non-governmental organizations. Most of the position papers and a summary of the discussions were forwarded to New York in time for the preparation of the Secretary-General's Millennium Report, subsequently submitted to the Millennium Assembly, The human development challenge
Human development is fundamentally about freedom, enhancing people's choices, and raising their level of well-being. From this perspective, substantive freedom includes the basic facility to avoid deprivations such as starvation, undernourishment, or premature mortality. It also encompasses the acquisition of certain basic skills (such as numeracy and literacy) as well as the capacity to enjoy participation in political and economic systems (Baehr, & Leordenker, 1997). Development, therefore, can be understood as the process of challenging contemporary tendencies that reinforce social exclusion in order to expand these freedoms to an ever-greater number of people..................
