Patterns of Development

Those agencies and organizations interested in economic and social development international, governmental, and nongovernmental form a closely-knit community with frequently interlinked websites. Any entrance to that community will usually provide easy access to many other home pages of potential interest. Your own personal or research interests will guide you along the way.

A good starting point is the United States Agency for International Development site at www.info.usaid.gov/. It not only provides information about the programs and achievements of USAID in developing countries but also contains an extensive list of "development links" to involved U.S. governmental and nongovernmental agencies, international and regional organizations, and general information sources.

USAID's northern counterpart is the Canadian International Development Agency. Its home page at www.acdi-cida.gc.ca/index-e.htm has a number of subheadings exploring the agency's and country's involvement in "global sustainable development." Another Canada-based organization is the action-oriented nonprofit International Institute for Sustainable Development at http://iisd1.iisd.ca/ Reaching out to businesses, governments, and individuals, the IISD seeks to develop "best practices" in achieving sustainable development. Its home page includes links to its "Measuring SD" efforts and to the "SDGateway," linking developmental groups worldwide and separately listed later in this On-Line.

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) home page offers access to current and past issues of its valuable "Human Development Reports" and their statistical series and contains links to other UN and related organizations: www.undp.org/

The United Nations Population Fund produces the annual "State of the World Population" report and makes current and past editions available through its home page at www.unfpa.org/. The website also provides easy extensive access to "other UN and NGO links," and features an AIDS clock tracking the incidence of that disease.

The World Bank Group WWW resources are among the most useful and valuable of any agency. Start at the Bank's home page at www.worldbank.org/ and select any of the menu choices Regions, Topics, Data, etc. to open a wealth of information. Secondary connections link to the Bank's "digital library" offering selected World Bank publications in full text or extensive summary form and making available selected tables from the latest World Development Report. A local search engine guides access to data and information contained in the many other Bank publications including the annual Social Indicators of Development separately viewable at www.ciesin.org/IC/wbank/sid-home.html You might also check the Bank's "Development Education Program" at www.worldbank.org/depweb/. Although designed for secondary students, it contains useful interactive learning modules teaching about social, economic, and environmental issues of sustainable development that are informative for any age group.

The Development Assistance Committee of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) is concerned with "measuring development progress." Don't miss the Development Indicators menu choice as you examine the Committee's page at www.oecd.org/dac/.

The Overseas Development Council is a private international policy research group whose website features its staff's publications and talks, its research programs, and links to other resources on development: www.odc.org/. The SD Gateway, sponsored in part by the IISD cited earlier, integrates a network of leading development institutes. The "SD Topics" and "Sustainability Web Ring" options are very useful and informative: http://sdgateway.net/noframe/start.htm.

"Libraries" of links to the extensive WWW collection of resources and sites are nearly indispensable for specific subject and regional searches. Among the useful special and general purpose ones are:

1. PRAXIS, the "international development home page" of Professor Richard Estes of the University of Pennsylvania at http://caster.ssw.upenn.edu/~restes/praxis.html. It features links to many resources on international and comparative social development topics.
2. The World-Wide Web Virtual Library IANWeb Resources on Economic Development at www.pitt.edu/~ian/resource/develop.htm.
3. The Virtual Library on International Development maintained by the Canadian International Development Agency at http://w3.acdi-cida.gc.ca/virtual.nsf.
4. The British BUBL Information Service providing an "economic development" BUBL Link at http://link.bubl.ac.uk/development/.
5. A WWW Virtual Library of International Development Cooperation claiming to provide a "meta-index" of international organizations concerned with all (and other) of the topics of this chapter at www.alcazar.com/wwwvl_idc/index.html.

WomenWatch, "the UN Internet gateway on the advancement and empowerment of women," at www.un.org/womenwatch/, is a joint venture of UN agencies devoted to women's concerns but also with interests in the larger area of economic and social development. Through its Women of the World links it provides world regional statistical data desegregated by sex, country information, reports on national women's programs, and related Internet resources on women and women's issues.

Unifem atwww.undp.org/unifem/ is the home page of the United Nations Development Fund for Women, an agency concerned with "working for women's empowerment and gender equality"; it has links to "economic empowerment" and "women's human rights" as well as to related resource pages. The UN also has a Division for the Advancement of Women (DAW) with an aim (among others) to promote "women as equal participants and beneficiaries of sustainable development": www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/. Each of these UN sites has extensive but different menu options opening a wealth of programs, publications, and ongoing activities of interest to all involved in world developmental issues.