Humanity has returned to its pre-pandemic level of development, but the record forecast for 2023 hides a gap which is now widening between rich and poor countries in a fragile world like a “house of cards”, warns the UN.
In 2020 and 2021, for the first time since its creation more than 30 years ago, the human development index, which takes into account life expectancy, education, and standard of living, had declined two years in a row, returning five years ago due to an unprecedented overlapping of crises, including COVID-19.
But since then “we have seen a rebound”, explains to AFP Achim Steiner, head of the UN Development Program (UNDP) which publishes this report on Wednesday.
Thus, estimates for 2023 predict a historic record for the index at the global level, with a return of all its components “above pre-2019 levels”. Even if COVID and the impacts of the war in Ukraine have slowed down the trajectory previously hoped for.
But what looks like good news hides an unexpected divide between rich and poor countries.
“The first time I saw the results, I asked the team to verify the data,” Pedro Conceição, responsible for the report, commented to the press.
“We see that the poorest and most vulnerable segments of our society are being left behind”, while the UN development goals for 2030 aim to ensure that no one is left behind, starting “with those who are furthest behind,” he insisted.
And this result is “very worrying” after “20 years during which countries have converged in terms of income, life expectancy and education”, insists Achim Steiner.
At the top of the development index list are still Switzerland, Norway and Iceland. Like them, the other OECD countries should all have returned to their 2019 level of development in 2023.
“Distrust and polarization”
At the back of the pack, Somalia, South Sudan and the Central African Republic. More than half of least developed countries have not recovered from the impacts of the pandemic, most of them on the African continent.
There is also “an extreme group” of countries like Sudan, Afghanistan or Burma that “the combination of the pandemic, fiscal crises and conflicts, sometimes civil wars, has trapped in a situation where recovery is “is not on the agenda,” laments Achim Steiner, rejecting the “usual narrative according to which the world is recovering.”
According to UNDP, Afghanistan, for example, has lost 10 years in terms of human development, and in Ukraine, the index is at its lowest since 2004.
And the widening gap further endangers a multipolar world, geopolitically more divided than ever.
“We live in a world richer than ever before in human history, at least in financial terms […] But there are more people who are hungry, more poor than ten years ago. More and more wars across the world, with tens of millions of refugees,” notes Achim Steiner. “It’s a riskier world, which turns against itself.”
The report called Breaking the impasse: reimagining cooperation in a polarized world looks at the shortcomings of international cooperation, highlighting a “democratic paradox”.
Thus, if the majority of the world’s inhabitants say they support democratic values, “populism is exploding”, the “every man for himself” mentality is returning and voters bring to power leaders who “undermine” this democracy, notes the UNDP. Thus placing humanity at “an unfortunate crossroads” where “distrust and polarization risk a head-on collision with a sick planet”.
At a time when countries should be “working together”, “we are transforming our partners, whom we need, into enemies”, denounces Achim Steiner.
“We are spending excessive amounts in defense budgets” without financing the fight against “the main risk factors of the 21ste century: inequality, climate change, cybercrime, the next pandemic”.