Global development stalls in 2024, widening inequality, UNDP warns
The global gap between rich and poor nations is widening as progress in human development slowed significantly in 2024, well before the United States implemented major international aid cuts, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has warned.
The findings, published Tuesday, May 6, in the UNDP’s annual Human Development Index (HDI) report, reveal a concerning stagnation in key indicators such as health, education, and living standards.
The HDI, which serves as a global benchmark for human development, had previously shown a strong recovery from the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic by 2023. However, this momentum appears to have faltered.
Achim Steiner, Administrator of the UNDP, described the findings as troubling. “The overarching conclusion is actually one that is quite unsettling. We have, over the almost 35 years that we have measured the Human Development Index now, which is essentially a proxy to measure progress in human development, and reached the lowest level of progress between one year to another last year,” Steiner told AFP. “So the HDI is in many ways a reflection of a world that is increasingly disrupted and that is facing also a different set of challenges.”
He noted that the slowdown is not confined to a single region or factor, but is instead being driven by widespread declines in key quality-of-life indicators.
“We are very concerned about these drivers that have essentially left the world at the moment in our time, not being able to gain momentum. They're losing momentum, and that is a message that when you go through the human development span by country, can relate to, for instance, a decline in life expectancy or in education levels or in income levels,” Steiner added.
If this deceleration pattern continues, it could seriously undermine global efforts to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030. According to Steiner, “If that unsettling slowdown becomes the new normal, achieving levels of human development once hoped for by 2030 could slip by decades.”
