In a wide-ranging analysis of identity issues in scores of communities and nations, the Human Development Report 2004 looks at many different policy approaches to multicultural nations and communities, from bilingual education and affirmative action plans to innovative systems of proportional representation and federalism. The authors argue that all people have the right to maintain their ethnic, linguistic, and religious identities. They further contend that the adoption of policies that recognize and protect these identities is the only sustainable approach to development in diverse societies. Economic globalization cannot succeed unless cultural freedoms are also respected and protected, they say—and xenophobic resistance to cultural diversity should be addressed and overcome.