UNDP publishes Human Development Report 2020
On 15 December 2020, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) published a new Human Development Report, which this year proposes a fundamentally new way of measuring human progress.
The Report ‘The Next Frontier: Human Development and the Anthropocene’, argues that as people and planet enter an entirely new geological epoch, the Anthropocene or the Age of Humans, it is time for all countries to redesign their paths to progress by fully accounting for the dangerous pressures humans put on the planet, and dismantle the gross imbalances of power and opportunity that prevent change.
To illustrate this point of view, the Report presents a new experimental index on human progress that takes into account countries’ carbon dioxide emissions and material footprint. By adjusting the HDI, which measures a nation’s health, education, and standards of living, to include two more elements: a country’s carbon dioxide emissions and its material footprint, the index shows how the global development landscape would change if both the wellbeing of people and also the planet were central to defining humanity’s progress.
“As this report shows, no country in the world has yet achieved very high human development without putting immense strain on the planet. But we could be the first generation to right this wrong. That is the next frontier for human development,” said Achim Steiner, UNDP Administrator.
The full report is available in English.
More information on the Report can be found at the website.