This year's UN Human Development Report is simply titled "The Rise of the South". It illustrates the immense power of a bloc of countries whose economic prowess is now chiefly responsible for propelling the world economic engine.

China, India and Brazil are the big players, but represented in that South bloc are 40 developing countries whose growth has been an antidote to the economic malaise infecting the developed North.

This tectonic shift in the South's economic power has led to millions of people being lifted out of poverty; millions more have been buoyed into the middle class. "The South as a whole is driving global economic growth and societal change for the first time in centuries," the UN report emphasizes.