Human Development Report (HDR) Toolkit for national and regional HDR Teams

This toolkit aims takes a step-by-step approach to addressing the three main phases of the HDR endeavor, namely, the process, the content and the critical final phase of sustained advocacy and outreach. It serves as a reference point for all who are involved in the preparation of Human Development Reports and presents a collective body of information to support the development of the human development reports. It is organised into the following sections:

• National ownership: introducing the concept of ownership as it relates to preparing and launching national and regional HDRs and touches upon issues such as government involvement, and donor-driven agendas and priorities. It reviews some of the core concepts underlying report preparation, including links to the broader goal of capacity development.
• Participatory and inclusive preparation: which explores strategies for deepening national ownership through participatory preparation of an HDR
• Independance of analysis: this chapter attempts to outline the practical elements of independent analysis through providing strategies and examples of past practices, and featuring a set of tools to help achieve it.
• Quality of analysis: this chapter examines how to attain the kind of high-quality analysis that informs credible policy proposals. In exploring the human development approach, it underscores some of the conceptual and measurement issues, and explains how human development enhances analysis of sectoral and thematic topics. It also looks at quality in terms of research and policy analysis tools, policy options and recommendations, and data.
• Flexibility and creativity in presentation: this chapter addresses three critical dimensions of presentation: how the report reads (the language), how it looks (the visual appearance and design), and how interactive technologies can add value. It also provides a series of additional tips and resources.
• Sustained follow up: This chapter reviews the most basic dimensions of advocacy for social change - which include outreach, communication and media, marketing and dissemination, and measurement of results. The tools and a bibliography at the end contain tips, sample materials, readings and further sources for expertise and information.