National and global developments during 1992-93 further strengthened the rationale underlying the five major programme areas chosen by the Centre for scientific and educational attention. Last year's Annual Report contained a reference to the increasing marginalisation of the poor; as brought out clearly in UNDP's 1992 Human Development Report. The UN Conference on Environment and Development held at Rio De Janeiro in June 1992 called for urgent steps to restore harmony between humankind and nature so that economic development can become ecologically sustainable. The 1993 Human Development Report of UNDP draws attention to another dangerous phenomenon in global economic development, namely jobless growth (Figures 1 and 2). In our . First Annual Report, it was pointed out that a primary purpose of our Research Centre is the generation of diversified and sustainable opportunities for skilled or value-added employment for the economically and socially handicapped sections of the rural population, based on an appropriate blend of traditional and frontier technologies. The Centre's goal of prohloting job-led economic growth in villages involves a shift from the traditional approach of development programmes resulting in jobs to one of skilled employment becoming the engine of economic growth. The priority thus shifts to enhancing human skills. Without such a shift, the phenomenon of. jobless growth will result in the further marginalisation of the poor, degradation of the environment, sense of despair among educated youth and ethnic and socio-political strife.
