For the first time in three decades, the global human development index has fallen for two consecutive years | Globalism

“Human development has returned to 2016 levels, reversing much of the progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The reversal has been almost universal, with More than 90% of countries recorded low HDI scores in 2020 or 2021, and more than 40% It fell in the two years, which indicates that the crisis is still deepening in many of them,” the UNDP details.

The United Nations argues that layers of uncertainty are piling up and interacting with imbalanced societies in unprecedented ways. “The past two years have had a devastating impact on billions of people across the planet, as crises such as Covid-19 and the war in Ukraine have followed each other and interacted with broad social and economic transformations, dangerous changes to the planet and a sharp increase in polarization,” the agency says.

While some countries are beginning to recover, recovery is erratic and partial, which increases disparities in human development. Latin America and the Caribbean, sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia have been hit hardest, according to a UNDP analysis released in a press release.

“The world is struggling to respond to back-to-back crises. We have seen through the cost-of-living and energy crises that while it is tempting to focus on quick solutions like fossil fuel subsidies, quick-relief approaches delay the long-term systemic changes we need to make,” says Achim Steiner. Executive Director of the United Nations Development Programme. We are collectively paralyzed by these changes. In a world marked by uncertainty, we need a renewed sense of global solidarity to meet our common and interconnected challenges.”

The report attempts to explain why the necessary change has not occurred and notes that there are many reasons, including how insecurity and polarization feed off each other today, to impede the solidarity and collective action needed to address crises across the board.

New UNDP calculations, for example, suggest that those who feel the most insecure are more likely to adopt extreme political views.

“Even before Covid, we were noticing the paradoxes of progress with insecurity and polarization. Today, with one-third of people around the world feeling nervous and nearly two-thirds of people around the world suspicious of each other, we face significant hurdles in adopting policies that work for people and the planet,” he says. Achim Steiner. in a note.