Pardee 2019-2020 Annual Review

A decade has passed since the release of the first two volumes in the Center’s Patterns of Potential Human Progress (PPHP) series. Those volumes, published jointly by Paradigm and Oxford University Press India, were Reducing Global Poverty (2009) and Advancing Global Education (2010). The volumes broke new ground in research in the two issue areas by looking out across 50 years in over 180 countries and by incorporating treatment of their respective subject matter within an extensively integrated model system.

Prior to the work undertaken for the volumes, the International Futures (IFs) system did not contain separate representation of either poverty or education, but it did include strong models of demographics and economics as a foundation for them. Generous support from Frederick S. Pardee made it possible to develop extensive models not only for poverty and education, but also for health, infrastructure, and governance (the subjects of the three later volumes in the PPHP series) within the IFs system. Reducing poverty and advancing education remain central to global goals for improving the wellbeing of individuals and societies. Where are we now, 10 years after the publication of these first two volumes in the PPHP series?

— BARRY HUGHES & MOHAMMOD IRFAN