The UN Human Development Index worsens for the second consecutive year due to the concatenation of crises

Nine out of ten countries have worsened their values ​​in the last two years, according to the UNDP

Sep. 8 () –

The Human Development Index produced annually by the UN has chained for the first time two consecutive years of decline, a milestone that, according to experts, derives from a spiral of crisis that began with the COVID-19 pandemic and now has as its main exponent the Russian invasion of Ukraine and its collateral effects on a global level.

The United Nations Development Program (UNDP), in charge of preparing this study for 32 years, detects a setback to 2016 levels, which ultimately implies new burdens to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) that the international community aspired to meet by 2030.

The setback is widespread, to the point that more than 90 percent of the countries have registered a deterioration in their levels in 2020 or 2021. More than 40 percent have recorded setbacks in both exercises, according to the UNDP, which detects a “partial and uneven” recovery and sees especially significant shortcomings in Latin America and the Caribbean, Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.

Switzerland, Norway, Iceland, Hong Kong, Australia, Denmark, Sweden, Ireland, Germany and the Netherlands occupy the top ten positions in this Human Development Index, while Spain remains in twenty-seventh place. At the bottom, on the other hand, are South Sudan, Chgad, Niger, the Central African Republic and Burundi.

The UNDP administrator, Achim Steiner, has appealed to international solidarity to continue advancing in a world that “desperately tries to respond to successive crises” and has warned of the risk of thinking only in the short term.

In this sense, he has recognized that in times of inflation or energy crisis it may be “tempting” to subsidize fossil fuels, but Steiner considers that this portrays the “systemic changes” that the world needs in the long term.

“We have a narrow window of opportunity to restart our systems and build a future with decisive action on climate change and creating new opportunities for all people,” he added.