SECRETARY-GENERAL'S TRIBUTE TO MAHBUB UL HAQ, CREATOR OF UNITED NATIONS HUMAN DEVELOPMENT REPORT
Press Release
SG/SM/6642
SECRETARY-GENERAL'S TRIBUTE TO MAHBUB UL HAQ, CREATOR OF UNITED NATIONS HUMAN DEVELOPMENT REPORT
19980717 This is the text of a statement today by Secretary-General Kofi Annan:The untimely death yesterday of Mahbub ul Haq is a loss for the world, and especially for those of us who were privileged to know and work with him in the United Nations system, to which he contributed so much.
His enduring monument is the annual Human Development Report which he created in 1990 and edited until 1996. It has caught the world's imagination, and has served as a model for similar national reports in no less than 197 countries. It reflected Mahbub's profound conviction that what matters in development is not quantities produced, but the quality of life lived by human beings. That belief, deeply rooted in his Islamic faith, informed all his work through the decades -- at the World Bank, as adviser to so many international commissions, in his native Pakistan and, above all, at the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).
We shall miss him as a friend, but he will still be with us as an inspiration in all our development work.
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