Over time the United Nations have come to more usually support the developing countries’ standpoint, and have requested important offsetting “foreign aid” contributions so that a developing country losing human capital does not lose the ability to continue to train new people in trades, businesses, and the arts.

In a chain of reports of the UN Secretary-General to the General Assembly over the past decade, a wide inter sectoral method to developing human resourcefulness has been outlined as a main concern for socio-economic development and predominantly anti-poverty strategies. This needs strategic and integrated public policies, for instance in education, health, and employment sectors that encourage occupational skills, and performance enhancement.

A significant controversy regarding labor mobility demonstrates the broader philosophical issue with usage of the words “human resources”: governments of developing countries often regard developed countries that encourage immigration or “guest workers” as appropriating human resources that is rightfully part of the developing country and required to further its growth as a civilization. They dispute that this appropriation is comparably to colonial commodity fiat wherein a colonizing European authority would define an arbitrary price for natural resources, extracting which diminished country natural capital.