Executive Summary

On February 15, the government of Israel approved a process to register land in the occupied West Bank as Israeli “state property.” The decision builds on a cabinet resolution introduced in May of 2025 that established the framework for renewed land settlement proceedings on Palestinian land.

Implemented for the first time since Israel’s occupation of the West Bank in 1967, this process enables Israeli authorities to declare land ‘state property’ when Palestinian ownership cannot be formally proven; a standard difficult for many Palestinians to meet. Even when landownership can be met, expropriative policies such as the Absentee Property Law allows Israel to confiscate Palestinian property and sell it to Israelis. A total of NIS 244.1 million has been allocated for this program, which has been stated to continue for decades. Israeli Government Resolution No. 3559 sets a first-phase objective of registering 15% of previously unregulated land within five years. [1]

This development follows the Israeli cabinet’s February 8th approval of a series of measures that expand Israeli control over land administration and acquisition in the West Bank, undermining the Palestinian Authority (PA) and amounting to de facto annexation. The details of the measures have not been released to the public, only communicated through a press release by government ministers.

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Introduction

Palestinian women in Gaza are subjected to overlapping forms of violence by Israel that converge into a single, coherent structure of domination. Starvation, sexual and gender-based violence, and reproductive violence do not occur as isolated abuses, but as an interlocking system enacted simultaneously and reinforcing one another. These practices operate across psychological, social, and biological dimensions of harm. While Palestinian women’s bodies are the immediate site of this violence, its intended target is Palestinian society as a whole. By systematically targeting women, Israel undermines collective survival, erodes social cohesion, and attacks the continuity of Palestinian life itself. Taken together, these practices constitute a gendered architecture of genocide that must be recognized and addressed as such.

The Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of Global Dialogue and Democracy (MIFTAH) has documented these three crimes throughout Israel’s genocide in Gaza. Firsthand testimonies collected from the Gaza Strip and the occupied West Bank reveal the distinctly gendered impacts of these violations and their cumulative effects on Palestinian women.

I. Sexual and Gender-Based Violence

Sexual and gender-based violence is systematically instrumentalized by Israel as a means of humiliating and isolating Palestinian women while dismantling family and community bonds. These violations should not be understood as isolated or aberrational incidents, but rather as part of a broader historical pattern in which sexual violence has been deployed as a tool of terror and social control against the Palestinian population.

Historical records document that during the 1948 ethnic cleansing of historic Palestine, Zionist paramilitary forces including the Haganah engaged in acts of sexual violence alongside mass killings and expulsions of Palestinians. The Haganah later became the institutional foundation of the contemporary Israeli military. This historical continuity underscores how sexual violence has long functioned as a weapon of war, embedded within military practices aimed at terrorizing civilians and facilitating population displacement.

Testimonies collected by MIFTAH fieldworkers across the West Bank and Gaza Strip reveal recurring patterns. Arrests conducted in family homes routinely transform domestic spaces into sites of domination. Soldiers storm houses, often in the middle of the night, restrain family members, destroy personal belongings, steal valuables, and dictate all movement within the home. Male relatives are frequently forced to witness or participate in the abuse of female family members, a tactic designed to emasculate men and dismantle the household from within.

Sexual violence also functions as a form of psychological torture in Israeli detention and interrogation settings. Alongside sleep deprivation, starvation, and physical assault, sexual violence is deliberately employed to induce psychological breakdown and assert total control. Testimonies describe forced strip searches, removal of hijabs, invasive bodily touching, slut-shaming, and explicit threats of rape against detainees or their relatives . Testimonies collected by the Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR) describe in detail the systematic use of secual torture in Israeil detention settings. Sexual violence is further enacted through blackmail, including the use of nude or indecent photographs taken during interrogation to coerce compliance or enforce silence. These practices aim to strip women of dignity, break them psychologically prior to or during interrogation, and inflict lasting harm that weakens their sense of self long after release.

The full extent of sexual violence against Palestinian women today remains difficult to quantify, as survivors rarely disclose sexual assault or rape causing underreporting to be widespread. This silence reflects structural, legal, and social barriers rather than the absence of abuse. Palestinian survivors of violence perpetrated by Israeli soldiers or settlers seldom pursue legal avenues due to the well-documented lack of accountability within Israeli law enforcement mechanisms, where investigations rarely result in prosecution or redress .

Social stigma also plays a role in silencing survivors. In a predominantly conservative social context, sexual violence carries stigma that extends beyond the survivor to her family and community. Israeli forces exploit this reality deliberately, using sexual violence and threats to women’s “honor” as mechanisms of coercion, intimidation, and social fragmentation. In this way, sexual violence operates not only as an assault on individual women, but as a strategic instrument of collective harm.

II. Reproductive Violence

Reproductive violence targets women’s capacity to give life through the systematic destruction of healthcare systems, maternity services, and the material conditions necessary for survival. It refers to deliberate actions intended to impair an entire population’s ability to reproduce and sustain itself. In Gaza, reproductive violence is not incidental to armed conflict; it is enacted through policy-driven destruction that reflects intentionality rather than collateral harm.

This violence is carried out through the systematic targeting of life-sustaining infrastructure, including hospitals, maternity wards, neonatal units, fertility clinics, and embryo preservation centers, as well as the blockade of medicines, medical equipment, and hygiene supplies. The consequences are visible in rising maternal mortality, increased miscarriages linked to malnutrition and extreme stress, untreated reproductive infections, and the repeated displacement of pregnant women seeking care within a collapsing healthcare system .

These measures directly undermine women’s ability to safely conceive, carry pregnancies to term, give birth, and raise children. Women’s reproductive health is further compromised by the deliberate obstruction of humanitarian aid and the collapse of sanitation and water infrastructure. The destruction of healthcare facilities, combined with ongoing bombardment and repeated displacement, has rendered movement dangerous and unpredictable, making access to medical care nearly impossible and severely limiting the ability of humanitarian organizations to provide reproductive and maternal health services.

As a result, there has been a sharp increase in preventable reproductive health complications. Women report rising cases of fever linked to untreated vaginal infections caused by inadequate hygiene and the absence of feminine hygiene products, as well as unnecessary hysterectomies . Women using intrauterine devices experience prolonged bleeding and infections due to unsanitary living conditions, yet no options for safe removal currently exist in Gaza, posing serious long-term risks to reproductive health and bodily integrity . Women have also been forced to undergo emergency hysterectomies to control excessive post- partum bleeding that could not be managed due to the lack of healthcare.

Reproductive violence in Gaza is therefore both biological and symbolic. It constitutes an assault on the present population and on the possibility of future generations. The objective of preventing Palestinian continuity is further evidenced by the sustained and disproportionate killing of children, who have consistently been the most targeted demographic group throughout the genocide. This killing is reinforced by an ideological framework that dehumanizes Palestinian women and children. Public statements by Israeli political and military officials have repeatedly framed the killing of women and children as militarily justified . Within this logic, women are targeted not for their actions, but for their reproductive capacity and their role in sustaining Palestinian continuity. Such rhetoric has informed and legitimized military operations in Gaza. Throughout the genocide, civilian spaces including schools, homes, and hospitals, have been deliberately targeted as a matter of state policy. These are precisely the spaces where women and children sought refuge. The systematic killing and endangerment of women and children is not a secondary effect of warfare but a central component of the broader genocidal strategy.

III. Starvation as a Weapon of Genocide

Another grave factor to the reproductive health of women in Gaza has been starvation. Prolonged malnutrition, combined with physical exhaustion, repeated displacement, and lack of healthcare infrastructure, have contributed to increased miscarriages, loss of amniotic fluid, and heightened maternal mortality . Numerous women have reported using prenatal supplements distributed by humanitarian organizations as meal substitutes for themselves or their families, or exchanging them for food and essential supplies. Breastfeeding has become increasingly difficult due to suppressed milk production associated with undernourishment, while infant formula remains largely inaccessible, placing newborns at heightened risk. Chronic stress and nutritional deprivation have also resulted in amenorrhea, fertility complications, and potential long-term reproductive harm.

For women in Gaza, starvation functions not only as a form of biological deprivation but as a structural assault on familial roles, social reproduction, and dignity. It undermines women’s capacity to fulfill caregiving responsibilities, destabilizes family life, and produces severe physical, reproductive, and psychological consequences. Women disproportionately experience the embodied impacts of hunger while simultaneously carrying the emotional labor associated with sustaining children and dependent family members.

Testimonies collected by MIFTAH from displaced women subjected to Israel’s forced starvation consistently begin with descriptions of pre-displacement life, including homes, employment, family routines, and domestic spaces. The loss of the home, particularly the kitchen, emerges as a recurrent theme, reflecting the erosion of women’s agency and identity. The destruction of homes and domestic spaces traditionally associated with women’s autonomy has contributed to a marked erosion of dignity and self-perception. Reported symptoms include anxiety, insomnia, hair loss, emotional dysregulation, and post-traumatic stress, with many women suppressing their own distress to maintain caregiving roles.

Repeated displacement has further exacerbated women’s vulnerability. Multiple forced relocations have resulted in the loss of personal possessions, kinship networks, and community-based support systems. Overcrowded shelters lack adequate privacy, sanitation, and safety, compelling women to manage childcare and food preparation under unsafe and degrading conditions. Everyday survival practices are thus shaped by constant exposure to risk and instability.

For women who serve as the primary caretakers of their families, providing for loved ones often comes at great personal risk. They are frequently reducing or skipping their own meals so that their children can eat, often continuing caregiving responsibilities despite severe physical exhaustion . In displacement, they prepare rudimentary meals using limited ingredients and improvised methods, such as cooking lentils over burning toxic materials like plastic. These practices function both as survival strategies and as efforts to maintain a sense of continuity and stability for children amid profound disruption. In these contexts, women disproportionately bear the responsibility of caring for sick, injured, or disabled family members, despite acute shortages of medical care, clean water, and shelter. Overcrowding and unsanitary conditions contribute to widespread illness, while attempts to obtain food or humanitarian assistance expose women and children to ongoing risks of injury or death.

Starvation has additionally intensified gendered pressures within households. Men’s inability to secure food or protection has been associated with increased psychological distress, thereby expanding women’s emotional and caregiving responsibilities. For women whose spouses have been killed, detained, or disappeared, starvation enforces sole provider roles under conditions that systematically undermine the possibility of survival.

Conclusion

MIFTAH has documented violations of sexual violence, reproductive violence, and starvation at various points during the genocide in Gaza. These violations, however, do not occur in isolation; they operate simultaneously, reinforcing and amplifying one another as part of a single system of control. Sexual violence isolates women from themselves and alienates them within their communities. Reproductive violence deliberately targets women because of their childbearing roles. Starvation acts as both a biological and psychological assault. Taken together, these crimes compound one another, deepening harm and undermining the survival of Palestinian women and their communities. A single woman may experience all three forms of violence, being violated in detention, displaced and denied healthcare, and later starved while unable to feed her children. Together, these crimes transform daily life into a persistent site of punishment. They attack the Palestinian female spirit, disrupt women’s societal roles, and, in doing so, fracture society across generations, making recovery increasingly difficult.

The failure to confront these violations reflects a long colonial history, in which the rhetoric of “saving women” was used to justify empire while violence against women perpetrated by colonial powers was silenced or dismissed. To resist normalization and impunity, these crimes must be recognized and addressed as mutually reinforcing acts of genocide. Understanding these violations as an interconnected system of oppression is essential to grasp their full impact on Palestinian society. These gendered crimes are not about women alone; they aim to dismantle the foundations of Palestinian life. Women are targeted not only as individuals but as mothers, community anchors, and bearers of generational continuity, while Palestinian society is systematically weakened and broken at its core.

Sources and References

Executive Summary

On 17 November 2025, the United Nations Security Council adopted Resolution 2803, establishing a new governance framework for Gaza. The resolution endorses U.S. President Donald Trump’s Comprehensive Plan to End the Gaza Conflict (CPEGC) and the creation of a transitional international administration through a U.S.-led Board of Peace (BoP) and authorizes an International Stabilization Force (ISF). Rather than ensuring Palestinian sovereignty, this framework transfers control of Gaza’s civil administration, security, reconstruction, borders, and humanitarian aid to external actors, entrenching foreign oversight and further consolidating Israeli dominance over the occupied Palestinian territory.

This resolution raises grave legal and political concerns. It departs from foundational principles of international law and undermines the Palestinian people’s inalienable right to self-determination. By providing no mechanisms for accountability for Israel’s documented violations, offering no concrete safeguards for Palestinian rights, and presenting an undefined framework with no clear timeline or benchmarks, Resolution 2803 risks perpetuating systemic injustices, enabling a reconfigured form of occupation, and further entrenching the colonial-style control already in place.

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Arab Human Development Report

Report cites partial progress toward gender equality, calls for wider and deeper change

SANA’A, YEMEN, 7 December—Women in the Arab world are not realizing their full potential and are still denied equality of opportunity, says the Arab Human Development Report 2005: Toward the rise of women in the Arab world, arguing that this represents not just a problem for women, but a barrier to progress and prosperity in Arab societies as a whole.

The Report (selected parts of which are available online at http://rbas.undp.org/ahdr2005.shtml) commends some Arab states for “significant, progressive changes” in addressing the fundamental gender biases prevalent in the region. Yet the authors cite a range of obstacles to equitable development, from cosmetic reforms with little real effect to violent conflict, foreign occupations and terrorism, which cast a shadow over the tantalizing hints of progress glimpsed in the Report’s pages.

In 2002, the first Arab Human Development Report identified women’s disempowerment as one of three critical deficits crippling Arab nations in their quest to return to the first rank of world leaders of commerce, learning and culture. Now, four years later, the unequivocal necessity of securing for Arab women a fair chance to thrive has reached primacy as a precondition for development.

“Human development requires more than economic growth alone. The fight against poverty is not a campaign of charity - it is a mission of empowerment. This is especially true as regards women, given that, of the world’s one billion poorest people, three-fifths are women and girls. Full participation and empowerment of women, as citizens, as producers, as mothers and sisters, will be a source of strength for Arab Nations and will allow the Arab World to reach greater prosperity, greater influence and higher levels of human development,” said United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Administrator Kemal Dervis. UNDP sponsored the Report.

This final report in the four-part series examines the situation of women in the region, with a special emphasis on health, education, and political participation. The 2005 Report also assesses the advancement of women by analysing Arab society’s desire for such progress, and the kinds of social action that are needed to achieve the goal of gender equality in the Arab states.

“To embrace the courage and activism of women in the Arab world is to champion the catalysts of human development. Hard-won gains in women’s rights are the culmination of decades of committed engagement by generations of women’s rights campaigners and their allies in Governments across the region,” said Amat Al Alim Alsoswa, UN Assistant Secretary-General and Director of UNDP’s Regional Bureau for Arab States.

The Report asserts that despite Arab women’s equal status under international law, their demonstrated talents and achievements in different spheres of human activity, and their priceless contributions to their families and society, many are not encouraged to develop and use their capabilities on an equal footing with men. In public life, cultural, legal, social, economic and political factors impede women’s equal access to education, health, job opportunities, citizens’ rights and representation, the Report contends. In private life, the Report says, traditional patterns of upbringing and discriminatory family and personal-status laws perpetuate inequality and subordination.

At the level of culture, the Report maintains, the fundamental obstacle to the rise of women remains how to deal with certain conflicts between the requirement of a productive economy and internationally agreed standards on the one hand and traditions and customs on the other.

The Report contends that the strongest inhibitors of development for many Arab citizens, women and men, have been foreign occupations and the ‘war on terror.’ “Women have endured a double portion of suffering under foreign occupation,” the Report says, and in many cases, the basic rights and freedoms of Arab citizens, extending from the right to life through civil and political rights to economic and social rights, have continued to be violated.

This negative environment—in conjunction with the spectre of extremist terrorism, which the Report condemns in the strongest possible terms—damages the prospects for a broad revival in the Arab world by impeding reform and obstructing opportunities for peaceful and just solutions to the occupation of Arab lands and the restriction of Arab freedoms and rights. A continued impasse over these matters, the Report argues, may push the region further towards extremism and violent protest in the absence of a fair system of governance at the global level that ensures security and prosperity for all.

However, the Report affirms, some achievements have been secured; most Arab countries now have a parliament, a cabinet or a local council in whose assigned tasks at least one woman participates effectively. Still, the Report warns that political reform, at every level, must go beyond the cosmetic and the symbolic: “In all cases…real decisions in the Arab world are, at all levels, in the hands of men.”

Islamic movements, often characterized in the West as uniformly malevolent forces, have, the Report contends, in reality been in many cases at the vanguard of women’s empowerment. “In the last five decades, the internal dynamics of these movements, their relationship to mainstream society and their positions on vital societal issues, on human rights and on good governance and democracy have undergone significant, progressive changes,” the Report explains.

Most of the mainstream Islamic movements, according to the AHDR, are witnessing notable growth of an enlightened leadership among their relatively younger generations. In addition, there is a growing grass-roots mandate for greater internal democracy, the Report says. However, these positive developments have not canceled out other currents outside mainstream Arab society that could seek to curtail freedom and democracy if they came to power, especially with regard to women.

Another reason for optimism can be found in the results of the public-opinion polls commissioned for the Report. The polls reveal a broad desire for a level of gender equality higher than that found today, and certainly higher that that which will result if societal obstacles to the rise of Arab women remain in place.

The Report affirms that a transformation is taking place in the Arab world, as women’s issues are increasingly permeating intellectual and cultural discourse: “Contemporary media forms such as the Internet, chat rooms, satellite television channels and their specialised programmes are based on the power of open public dialogue, quick communication and accessible communities of thought and practice. For women, they open up a new avenue of liberation that allows them to occupy spaces that they could not have entered through the conventional print media.”

Still, the modern Arab women’s movement is too often misconstrued as an import from the West; in reality, the concept of gender equality has deep roots in the region. Egypt’s first “women’s educational society” was founded in 1881, with raising public awareness of women’s rights as a key objective. The 1940s, under colonialism, saw a surge in women’s organizations, most of which dedicated themselves to issues like polygamy and women’s right to education.

The Arab Human Development Report 2005 concludes that the rise of women in the Arab world requires, first, that all Arab women be afforded full opportunities to acquire essential health, and knowledge on an equal footing with male counterparts. Second, “full opportunities must be given to Arab women to participate as they see fit in all types of human activity outside the family on an equal footing with men.”

In line with the calls in previous reports for comprehensive, rights-based societal reforms, the AHDR asserts that the rise of Arab women entails:

• Total respect for the rights of citizenship of all Arab women.
• The protection of women’s rights in the area of personal affairs and family relations.
• Guarantees of total respect for women’s personal rights and freedoms.

In addition, the Report calls for the temporary adoption of affirmative action in expanding the participation of Arab women to all fields of human activity. This will allow the dismantling of the centuries-old structures of discrimination against women.

The Report maintains that the rise of women requires a wide and effective movement in Arab civil society aimed at achieving human development for all. Such a movement, the Report asserts, will be the means by which Arab women may empower themselves and their male supporters. It will have two levels. The first is national and will involve all levels of society in every country. The second is regional and will be founded on trans-border networks for co-ordination and support of regional efforts to empower women.

* * *

For more AHDR information please visit www.undp.org/arabstates

For further information, please contact:
New York: Sausan Ghosheh, Tel. +1 (212) 906-5390 or Cell +1 (917) 213 0671, sausan.ghosheh@undp.org; Benjamin Craft, Tel. +1 (212) 906-5344 or 1 (212) 906-5382, E-mail: benjamin.craft@undp.org
Geneva and Paris: Jean Fabre, Tel. + 41 22 917 8542 or Cell + 41 79 437 0776, E-mail: jean.fabre@undp.org
London: Chandrika Deshpande, Tel. + 44 20 7396 5338 or Cell + 44 7957 460 246, Chandrika.deshpande@undp.org

ABOUT UNDP: UNDP is the UN's global development network. We are on the ground in 166 countries, working as a trusted partner with governments, civil society and the private sector to help them build their own solutions to global and national development challenges. Further information can be found at www.undp.org

Human deprivation can occur in many ways, some more remediable than others. The human development approach has been extensively used in the development literature (including earlier Human Development Reports) to analyze several prominent sources of affliction, ranging from illiteracy and a lack of health care to unemployment and indigence. In this year’s Report there is a substantial expansion of coverage and reach focusing in particular on the importance of cultural liberty and on the personal and social loss that can result from its dearth.

This refocusing does not abandon the basic commitments of the human development approach. The underlying motivation continues to be to search for ways of enhancing people’s lives and the freedoms they can enjoy. Denial of cultural liberty can generate significant deprivations, impoverishing human lives and excluding people from the cultural connections they have reason to seek. So the human development perspective can be extended to accommodate the importance of cultural liberty.

The cultural dimensions of human development require careful attention for three reasons. First, cultural liberty is an important aspect of human freedom, central to the capability of people to live as they would like and to have the opportunity to choose from the options they have—or can have. The advance of cultural liberty must be a central aspect of human development, and it requires us to go beyond social, political and economic opportunities, since by themselves they do not guarantee cultural liberty.

Second, even though there has been much discussion in recent years about culture and civilization, the focus has been less on cultural liberty and more on recognizing—even celebrating—cultural conservatism. The human development approach has something to offer in clarifying the importance of human freedom in cultural spheres. Rather than glorify unreasoned endorsement of inherited traditions, or warn the world about the alleged inevitability of clashes of civilizations, the human development perspective demands that attention go to the importance of freedom in cultural spheres (as in others), and to the ways of defending and expanding the cultural freedoms that people can enjoy. The critical issue is not just the significance of traditional culture—it is the far-reaching importance of cultural choices and freedoms.

Third, cultural liberty is important not only in the cultural sphere, but in the successes and failures in social, political and economic spheres. The different dimensions of human life have strong interrelations. Even poverty, a central economic idea, cannot be adequately understood without bringing in cultural considerations. Indeed, the close link between cultural deprivation and economic poverty was noted by no less an economist than Adam Smith, whose works have, as it happens, illuminated the relevance of human development.

Smith argued not only that poverty takes the gross shape of hunger and physical deprivation, but that it can also arise in the difficulties that some groups experience in taking part in the social and cultural life of the community. In particular, the analysis of poverty and the diagnosis of what commodities count as “necessaries” cannot be independent (Smith argued) of the demands of local culture. As he wrote: “By necessaries I understand not only the commodities which are indispensably necessary for the support of life, but whatever the custom of the country renders it indecent for creditable people, even the lowest order, to be without....Custom has rendered leather shoes a necessary of life in England. The poorest creditable person of either sex would be ashamed to appear in public without them.”1

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Accommodating people’s growing demands for their inclusion in society, for respect of their ethnicity, religion, and language, takes more than democracy and equitable growth. Also needed are multicultural policies that recognize differences, champion diversity and promote cultural freedoms, so that all people can choose to speak their language, practice their religion, and participate in shaping their culture—so that all people can choose to be who they are.

Foreword

At a time when the notion of a global “clash of cultures” is resonating so powerfully—and worryingly—around the world, finding answers to the old questions of how best to manage and mitigate conflict over language, religion, culture and ethnicity has taken on renewed importance. For development practitioners this is not an abstract question. If the world is to reach the Millennium Development Goals and ultimately eradicate poverty, it must first successfully confront the challenge of how to build inclusive, culturally diverse societies. Not just because doing so successfully is a precondition for countries to focus properly on other priorities of economic growth, health and education for all citizens. But because allowing people full cultural expression is an important development end in itself.

Human development is first and foremost about allowing people to lead the kind of life they choose—and providing them with the tools and opportunities to make those choices. In recent years Human Development Report has argued strongly that this is as much a question of politics as economics—from protecting human rights to deepening democracy. Unless people who are poor and marginalized—who more often than not are members of religious or ethnic minorities or migrants—can influence political action at local and national levels, they are unlikely to get equitable access to jobs, schools, hospitals, justice, security and other basic services.

This year’s Report builds on that analysis, by carefully examining—and rejecting—claims that cultural differences necessarily lead to social, economic and political conflict or that inherent cultural rights should supersede political and economic ones. Instead, it provides a powerful argument for finding ways to “delight in our differences”, as Archbishop Desmond Tutu has put it. It also offers some concrete ideas on what it means in practice to build and manage the politics of identity and culture in a manner consistent with the bedrock principles of human development.

Sometimes, that is relatively easy—for example, a girl’s right to an education will always trump her father’s claim to a cultural right to forbid her schooling for religious or other reasons. But the question can get much more complicated. Take education in the mother tongue. There is persuasive evidence that young children are more successful learning in their own language. However, what is an advantage at one point in life—and indeed may remain an indispensable bedrock of identity throughout life—can turn into a disadvantage in other ways when lack of proficiency in more widely used national or international languages can severely handicap employment opportunities. As this Report makes clear, from affirmative action to the role of the media, there are no easy—or one size fits all—rules for how best to build working multicultural societies.

Even so, one overarching lesson is clear: succeeding is not simply a question of legislative and policy changes, necessary though they be. Constitutions and legislation that provide protections and guarantees for minorities, indigenous people and other groups are a critical foundation for broader freedoms. But unless the political culture also changes—unless citizens come to think, feel and act in ways that genuinely accommodate the needs and aspirations of others—real change will not happen.

When the political culture does not change, the consequences are disturbingly clear. From disaffected indigenous groups across Latin America, to unhappy minorities in Africa and Asia, to new immigrants across the developed world, failing to address the grievances of marginalized groups does not just create injustice. It builds real problems for the future: unemployed, disaffected youth, angry with the status quo and demanding change, often violently.

That is the challenge. But there are also real opportunities. The overarching message of this Report is to highlight the vast potential of building a more peaceful, prosperous world by bringing issues of culture to the mainstream of development thinking and practice. Not to substitute for more traditional priorities that will remain our bread and butter—but to complement and strengthen them. The flip side of the development divide is that developing countries are often able to draw on richer, more diverse cultural traditions—whether captured in language, art, music or other forms— than their wealthier counterparts in the North. The globalization of mass culture—from books to films to television—clearly poses some significant threats to these traditional cultures. But it also opens up opportunities, from the narrow sense of disadvantaged groups like Australian Aborigines or Arctic Inuit tapping global art markets, to the broader one of creating more vibrant, creative, exciting societies.

Like all Human Development Reports, this is an independent study intended to stimulate debate and discussion around an important issue, not a statement of United Nations or UNDP policy. However, by taking up an issue often neglected by development economists and putting it firmly within the spectrum of priorities in building better, more fulfilled lives, it presents important arguments for UNDP and its partners to consider and act on in their broader work. This year, I would also like to pay particular tribute to Sakiko Fukuda-Parr, who is stepping down after 10 successful years leading our Human Development Report Office. I would also like to extend special thanks to Amartya Sen, one of the godfathers of human development, who has not only contributed the first chapter but been an enormous influence in shaping our thinking on this important issue.

Mark Malloch Brown
Administrator, UNDP

From the Atlantic to the Gulf, people-- women, men and children--are the real wealth and hope of Arab countries. Policies for de- velopment and growth in the Arab region must focus on freeing people from depriva- tion, in all its forms, and expanding their choices. Over the last five decades, remark- able progress has been achieved in advancing human development and reducing poverty. However, much still needs to be done to ad- dress the backlog of deprivation and imbal- ance.

Looking forward, much also needs to be done in order to empower the people of the Arab region to participate fully in the world of the twenty-first century. Globalization and ac- celerating technological advances have opened doors to unprecedented opportuni- ties, but they have also posed a new risk: that of being left behind as the rate of change ac- celerates, often outpacing state capacity. Development is being reinvented by new mar- kets (e.g., foreign exchange and capital mar- kets), new tools (e.g., the Internet and cellular phones), new actors (e.g., non-governmental organizations, the European Union and World Trade Organization) and new rules (e.g., multilateral agreements on trade, ser- vices and intellectual property).

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