The recently published Human Development Report 2013, appropriately titled ‘The Rise of the South’, focuses on the emergence of major economic powers from the South that are at the heart of a 21st century rebalancing of the global landscape.

It stresses the developmental achievements by developing nations from diverse regions, helping to lift hundreds of millions out of poverty and creating a massive new middle class. By 2030, 80% of the world’s middle class will come from the developing countries.

The South already accounts for the lion’s share of global output and its estimated production in China, India and Brazil will surpass the combined output of the industrialised nations in Europe and North America in less than a decade. Furthermore, South-South cooperation in terms of trade, investment and technology is expected to expand dramatically.

Alongside the unparalleled growth and development of large developing economies, there has also been remarkable progress made by smaller countries. The Human Development Report 2013 duly cites Mauritius as a success story, having attained a high level of human development in a relatively short span of time despite the inherent constraints of a small island state with no natural resources.

Three main enablers of developmental transformation are identified. First is strong, proactive and pragmatic policy-making. For instance, Mauritius has been successful in charting its development path thanks to a commitment to sound economic planning and management and investment in people, institutions and infrastructure that have promoted both industrial and human development.

Second is the integration into global markets. We have embraced trade liberalisation and openness as the main strategy for economic diversification, growth, employment creation and development.

Third, effective social policies that protect the vulnerable and promote social inclusion are crucial. In Mauritius, the welfare state as well as sustained investment in education and health care have helped to sustain long term growth and uplift the level of human development.

Undoubtedly, the experience of Mauritius can serve as an example to other less developed countries but our success in the future is not guaranteed. We are currently ranked 80th out of 186 countries in terms of human development. There is a need to maintain and accelerate the progress made over the past 45 years since independence in order to move to higher levels of growth, development and prosperity.

These are some of the policy priorities for our development agenda. We remain heavily dependent on traditional European markets which have come to maturity and are faced with serious economic uncertainty and difficulty. Our economic policies should be geared towards sustaining the reform momentum to build resilience to recurrent crises, improve productivity and competitiveness and diversification for tapping into new poles of growth as well as regional and other emerging markets.

Economic growth need to be job-rich and inclusive. Better job opportunities need to be created as the labour force grows and becomes more educated, especially for young people. Social inclusion, poverty reduction, gender equality and empowerment of vulnerable groups, with the emphasis on improving education outcomes for all, are essential for further advancing human development.

Basic social services and social protection systems need to be made more efficient and effective while the challenges of an ageing population and increasing dependency ratio need to be adequately managed.

Natural disasters and other environmental threats also have to be confronted in order to reduce their negative impacts on local communities and often the poor. Climate change adaptation and enhancing environmental sustainability should therefore be high on the agenda.

Our development policy orientation is for the most part appropriate. Our actions need to be more concrete, effective, focused and continual for sustaining progress in human development.