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What is human development?

In 1990 the first Human Development Report introduced a new approach for advancing human wellbeing. Human development – or the human development approach – is about expanding the richness of human life, rather than simply the richness of the economy in which human beings live. It is an approach that is focused on people and their opportunities and choices.

Measuring Human Development: the Human Development Index (HDI)

You may be wondering how two countries with the same level of gross national income (GNI) per capita can end up with different human development outcomes. The HDI was created to emphasize that people and their capabilities should be the ultimate criteria for assessing the development of a country, not economic growth alone. It is the geometric mean of normalized indices for each of the three dimensions: a long and healthy life, being knowledgeable and have a decent standard of living.

Human Development Report 2019

Beyond income, beyond averages, beyond today: Inequalities in human development in the 21st century

The global launch of the 2019 Human Development Report (HDR) took place on Monday, 9 December, in Bogota, Colombia.

“Different triggers are bringing people onto the streets — the cost of a train ticket, the price of petrol, demands for political freedoms, the pursuit of fairness and justice. This is the new face of inequality, and as this Human Development Report sets out, inequality is not beyond solutions,” says UNDP Administrator, Achim Steiner.

The 2019 Human Development Report (HDR), entitled “Beyond income, beyond averages, beyond today: inequalities in human development in the 21st Century,” says that just as the gap in basic living standards is narrowing for millions of people, the necessities to thrive have evolved.

A new generation of inequalities is opening up, around education, and around technology and climate change — two seismic shifts that, unchecked, could trigger a ‘new great divergence’ in society of the kind not seen since the Industrial Revolution, according to the report.

Although the report analyzes inequality in three steps, beyond income, beyond averages, and beyond today, the problem of inequality is not beyond solutions, it says, proposing a battery of policy options to tackle it.

Human Development Report 2019 is now available on UNDP’s website in multiple languages. Prime Production is proud to provide French and Spanish translations and DTP.