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This report examines four criteria which are often used today to rank and assess countries’ levels of development. They are: (1) per capita income; (2) economic and social structure; (3) social conditions; and (4) the prevailing level of economic and political freedom. Specific indices or quantitative studies are explained and applied to each criteria and the differences among the various measures are explained.

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This report provides the background and issues of the food crisis in Southern Africa.

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This report analyzes the controversy, for the most part now concluded, surrounding a Clinton Administration revision of the Federal Acquisition Regulation to clarify the meaning and application of a statutory requirement that federal contracting officers must determine that a prospective contractor has "a satisfactory record of integrity and business ethic."

P.L. 104-193 (the 1996 welfare reform legislation) made major changes to the Child Support Enforcement (CSE) program. Some of the changes include requiring states to increase the percentage of fathers identified, establishing an integrated, automated network linking all states to information about the location and assets of parents, and requiring states to implement more enforcement techniques to obtain collections from debtor parents. Additional legislative changes were made in 1997, 1998, and 1999, but not in 2000. This report describes several aspects of the revised CSE program and discusses three issues that probably will be reexamined by the 107th Congress — CSE financing, parental access by noncustodial parents, and distribution of support payments.

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Congress has long been concerned about whether U.S. policy advances the national interest in reducing the role of the People's Republic of China (PRC) in the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and missiles that could deliver them. China has taken some steps to mollify U.S. concerns about its role in weapons proliferation. Skeptics question whether China's cooperation in weapons nonproliferation has warranted President Bush's pursuit of stronger bilateral ties. This report discusses the national security problem of China's role in weapons proliferation and issues related to the U.S. policy response, including legislation, since the mid-1990s.

This report is prepared annually to provide unclassified quantitative data on conventional arms transfers to developing nations by the United States and foreign countries for the preceding eight calendar years. Some general data are provided on worldwide conventional arms transfers, but the principal focus is the level of arms transfers by major weapons suppliers to nations in the developing world. The data in the report illustrate how global patterns of conventional arms transfers have changed in the post-Cold War and post-Persian Gulf War years.

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