Whilst honouring the views of quite different cultures and belief systems, these profiles do not endeavour to distinguish between "positive" and "negative" approaches to human development. It is important to recognize that for advocates of particular approaches to human development, alternative approaches may be perceived as totally misleading, if not downright dangerous. Such views are usually reciprocated and lead notably to religious conflict.

Ordering of entries

There are no official lists of approaches to human development -- nor to their associated modes of awareness. The approaches to human development profiled here are derived from extensive literature searches across disciplines, cultures and spiritual traditions. In some cases what is named may not appear either like an approach to human development, nor a mode of awareness, but it may be interpreted as such by some within the culture or discipline concerned.

Naming

The term "human development" relates to concepts that people identify with, consider meaningful or reject in their search for growth and fulfilment in life. It points to a process which is of vital interest at a time when the organization and future of life on this planet is challenged by the consequences of past understandings of that same process. For it is human development, through its lack of restraint, which has given rise to a high proportion of the problems of the world. There is nevertheless much confusion concerning the significance of the term.

Scope

The Human Potential and Development section of the Encyclopedia of World Problems and Human Potential provides profiles of human development approaches and modes of awareness, and their relationships, as perceived by different beliefs systems, disciplines, religions, and cultures.

A project of this scope, based on a multiplicity of sources of information, necessarily contains errors of the following kinds:

The Encyclopedia offers radically different perspectives to policy-makers, social researchers and those concerned with development strategy. It is also fascinating reading for any individual with concern for human affairs and wary of the risks of "tunnel vision" in conventional approaches to crises and opportunities. For instance, the researchers at the UIA are concerned with new ways of visualizing complex networks of relationships. The challenge is to find meaningful ways to navigate through such complexity and to evoke imaginative insights in response to it.

The profiles (and relationships between them) in the participative encyclopedia are created most usually from publicly available sources of information. Through the dynamics of the participative process, this information is subject to continuous revision, taking into account insights from both emerging coalitions of opinion and from perspectives articulated in public debate.