Faced with an unprecedented layer of crises, notably Covid-19, the world has gone back five years in terms of human development, fueling “distrust” and “frustration” across the planet, the UN warned in a report published on Thursday.
For the first time since its creation more than 30 years ago, the Human Development Index, which takes into account life expectancy, education and living standards, has fallen two years in a row in 2020 and 2021, worries the States report United. United Nations Development Program (UNDP).
“This means that we die earlier, that we are less educated and that our incomes fall,” its head Achim Steiner said during an interview with AFP.
“With these three parameters, you can get an idea of why people are starting to get depressed, frustrated, worried about the future,” he insists.
While the index had been in continuous growth for decades, in 2021 it returned to its 2016 level, “erasing” years of development. It is especially about Covid, but also the climate disasters that are multiplying, and the crises that overlap without giving the population time to breathe.
“We have experienced disasters before, we have had conflicts before, but the combination of what we are facing today is a great obstacle to the development of humanity”, insists the head of UNDP.
This decline is almost universal, affecting more than 90% of the planet’s countries, even if disparities between countries are still glaring. Switzerland, Norway and Iceland are still at the top of the list. And finally, South Sudan, ahead of Chad and Niger.
And while some countries have begun to recover from the impacts of the pandemic, many others in Latin America, sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia or the Caribbean have not had time to recover from the downturn. already a new crisis: the war in Ukraine.
– Paralyzed –
With its huge impact on food and energy security – not yet taken into account in the index that stops in 2021 – “without a doubt, the outlook for 2022 is bleak,” noted Achim Steiner.
The decline in the Human Development Index is mainly driven by a drop in life expectancy of more than a year and a half between 2019 and 2021 (71.4 years in 2021 vs. 73 years in 2019), while generally gaining a few months each year.
“Despite significant economic recovery in 2021, life expectancy continues to decline,” report author Pedro Conceiçao noted at a news conference, calling the drop an “unprecedented blow.”
“In the United States there has been a two-year decline in life expectancy, in other countries the decline is even greater.”
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The report also describes a world and population “disturbed” by these accumulated crises and the resulting “insecurity”.
“People have lost faith”, “our neighbors sometimes become the main threat, either locally or between nations. And this paralyzes us”, believes Achim Steiner, fearing that all these “disappointments” will lead some to extremes and violence.
So, “we can no longer continue with the rules of the game of the last century, focused on economic growth”, he says. “The transformation we need requires new indicators: low carbon, less inequality, more sustainability…”.
The report specifically suggests focusing on three areas: investments in particular in renewable energies and preparing for future pandemics, insurance (including social protection) to absorb shocks and innovations to strengthen capacities to cope with future crises.
UNDP also calls for the recent downward trend in development aid to the most vulnerable countries not to continue.
It would be a “serious mistake”, which would reduce “our ability to work together”, insists Achim Steiner. While “climate change, poverty, cybercrime, pandemics require us to work together, as an international community”.
