At worst, this may be effectively a hollow shell of no practical significance whatsoever. It may even be designed to serve the vested interests which created the problem. Some governments have ministries of the environment which are primarily concerned with ensuring effective exploitation of the environment rather than with conserving it. Blatant formulation of cynical strategies can however be challenged even if the challenges carry less weight. There is a subtler danger.
Human development provides an interesting example.
Political economists have long resisted any recognition of the importance of this dimension. The human consequences of the structural adjustment programmes of the World Bank have however drawn attention to the dangerous insensitivity of this classical perspective of economists. Consequently UNDP now produces an annual Human Development Report . Inspection of this document reveals that its focus is limited to the most basic physical and social dimensions of the range of understandings of human development. It completely fails to include any psychological or spiritual dimensions which might be associated with individual or collective well-being.