Committee for Development Policy (CDP) member Marc Fleurbaey co-directed the first report of the International Panel for Social Progress, Rethinking Society for the 21st Century. The panel brings together nearly 300 researchers, under the chairmanship of Amartya Sen, to examine the prospects for social progress. In its first report, the panel examined the long-term evolution of societies and the factors of progress, addressing democracy, poverty and inequality, globalization, labor, migration, economic and corporate governance, global and environmental risks, health, conflicts, religions, education, diversity and integration, and other issues. One of the report´s main messages is that meeting the challenges of social progress and mobilizing collective capacities for the benefit of the many requires reforms that will confront certain vested interests but will be based on broad consensual principles, involving an expansion of participatory governance and the promotion of equal dignity between people, groups and cultures.

The report is published by Cambridge University Press in three volumes: I Socio-Economic Transformations; II Political Regulation, Governance and Societal Transformations; III Transformations in Values, Norms, Cultures.

The Report Summary is available online at: https://www.ipsp.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/IPSP-Executive-Summary.pdf

A trade book for the wider public accompanies the release of the report: A Manifesto for Social Progress. Ideas for A Better Society, by M. Fleurbaey , with Olivier Bouin, Marie-Laure Djelic , Ravi Kanbur , Helga Nowotny , Elisa Reis (Cambridge University Press).

More information:

International Panel for Social Progress