UNDP: Human development progress slows to 35-year low

 

Global human development faces the potential damning future with an unprecedented slowing in momentum. 

 

This is made clear in UNDP's Human Development Report 2025, which analyses development progress across a range of indicators known as the Human Development Index.

 

The index measures achievements in health and education, along with levels of income between 1990 and 2023. 

 

Referencing the latest available data in 2023, the new report says instead of seeing sustained recovery following the period of exceptional crises of 2020 to 2021, there is unexpectedly weak progress. But a controversial innovation, artificial intelligence (AI), could flip the script by reigniting development. 

 

Excluding the crisis years, the meagre rise in global human development reflected in this year's report is the smallest increase since 1990. 

 

Projections for 2024 reveal stalled progress on the HDI in all regions across the world.

 

Beyond the alarming rate of deceleration, the report finds widening inequalities between rich and poor countries rising for the fourth consecutive year. And as traditional paths to development are squeezed by global pressures, it concludes that decisive action is needed to move the world away from prolonged stagnation. 

 

UNDP Administrator Achim Steiner explains that this deceleration signals a very real threat to global progress in high human development expected by 2030.

 

He believes if 2024's sluggish progress becomes the new normal, that 2030 milestone could slip by decades. 

 

The rise also reverses a long-term trend that has seen a reduction in inequalities between wealthy and poor nations. 

 

Development challenges for countries with the lowest HDI scores are especially severe, driven by increasing trade tensions, a worsening debt crisis, and the rise of jobless industrialisation. 

 

But while AI is no panacea, new capabilities are emerging almost daily to open new pathways and possibilities. 

 

The results of a new survey were featured, showing that people are realistic yet hopeful about the change AI can bring.

 

Half of respondents worldwide think their jobs could be automated. An even larger share - 6 in 10 - expect AI to impact their employment positively, creating opportunities in jobs that may not exist today. Only 13% of survey respondents' fear AI could lead to job losses. 

 

The report outlines three critical areas for action, which are: building an economy where people collaborate with AI rather than compete against it, embedding human agency across the full AI lifecycle from design to deployment, and modernising education and health systems to meet 24th-century demands.