REPORT 2023/2024
SNAPSHOT

Reimagining
cooperation ina polarized world

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Breaking the gridlock
Reimagining cooperation in a polarized world

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REPORT 2023/2024

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Reimagining
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The 2023/2024 Human
Development Report

H U M A N D E V E LO P M E N T
REPORT 2023/2024
S N A P S H OTBreaking the gridlock
A snapshot of the 2023/2024
Human Development ReportBreaking the gridlock

A snapshot of the 2023/2024 Human Development Report

HUMA N DEVELOP MENT R EP ORT 2023/2024

We can do better than this. Better than runaway climate change and pandemics. Better than a spate of
unconstitutional transfers of power amid a rising,globalizing tide of populism. Better than cascading
human rights violations and unconscionable massacres of people in their homes and civic venues, in hospitals, schools and shelters.
We must do better than a world always on the brink,a socioecological house of cards. We owe it to ourselves, to each other, to our children and their children.
We have so much going for us.
We know what the global challenges are and who
will be most affected by them. And we know there
will surely be more that we cannot anticipate today.
We know which choices offer better opportunities
for peace, shared prosperity and sustainability, betterways to navigate interacting layers of uncertainty andinterlinked planetary surprises.1
We enjoy unprecedented wealth, knowhow andtechnology­—­unimaginable to our ancestors­—­that withmore equitable distribution and use could power boldand necessary choices for peace and for sustainable, inclusive human development on which peace depends.
So why does pursuing the ambitions of the 2030
Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Paris
Agreement feel like a half-­hearted slog throughquicksand?
Why in many places does restoring peace, evenpauses or ceasefires as hopeful preludes to peace, feelso elusive?
Why are we immobilized on digital governancewhile artificial intelligence races ahead in a data
goldrush?
In short, why are we so stuck? And how do we
get unstuck without resorting myopically to violence or isolationism? These questions motivate the2023/2024 Human Development Report.
Sharp questions belie their complexity; issues withpower disparities at their core often defy easy explanation. Magic bullets entice but mislead­—­siren songs
peddled by sloganeering that exploits group-­based
grievances. Slick solutions and simple recipes poison
our willingness to do the hard work of overcoming
polarization.
Geopolitical quagmires abound, driven by shifting power dynamics among states and by nationalgazes yanked inward by inequalities, insecurity andpolarization, all recurring themes in this and recent

Human Development Reports. Yet we need not sit on
our hands simply because great power competition isheating up while countries underrepresented in global governance seek a greater say in matters of global
import. Recall that global cooperation on smallpox
eradication and protection of the ozone layer, among
other important issues such as nuclear nonproliferation, happened over the course of the Cold War.
Slivers of hope have emerged even now. The
Ukraine grain deal, before its suspension in 2023,
averted widespread food insecurity, which would
have hurt poorer countries and poorer people most.
The production of Covid-­19 vaccines, which saved
millions of lives, relies on global supply chains, although, tragically, many more lives could have beensaved if vaccine coverage had been more equitable.2
Countries continue to cooperate on genomic sequencing of variants, even as shameful inequities invaccine access persist.3 At the 28th Conference of theParties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate
Change, the world established a new loss and damage fund to benefit more than 3 billion people, withpledges totalling over $600 million.4 Global clean
energy investment, and the jobs and opportunities
that come with it, reached an all-­time high of $1.8 trillion in 2023 (equivalent to the size of the economy of
the Republic of Korea), almost twice the amount in2020.5
However challenging they are, geopolitics are simply not an excuse to stay stuck in gridlock. There arepaths through. Reimagining and fully providing global public goods in ways that meet national development needs at the same time is one of them.
The 2021–2022 Human Development Report argued that a new uncertainty complex is unsettling lives
the world over and dragging on human development.
The global Human Development Index (HDI) value
fell for the first time ever­—in both 2020 and 2021.
The global HDI value has since rebounded to a
projected record high in 2023 (figure S.1). All components of the global HDI are projected to exceed theirpre-­2019 values.6
Despite being projected to reach a new high, theglobal HDI value would still be below trend. And
the global figure masks disturbing divergence acrosscountries: every Organisation for Economic Co-­
operation and Development country is projected
to have recovered, but only about half of the Least

Sn apshot — Breaking the gridlock3

Figure S.1 A permanent shift in the Human Development Index (HDI) trajectory?

Global HDI value
0.800
019

2
Pre-

d

tren

0.750

al

Actu

0.700
2015
0.650

0.600

2017

2019

2021

2023
(projected)

1999 2001 2003 2005 2007 2009 2011 2013 2015 2017 2019 2021 2023
(projected)

Note: The global HDI value for 2023 is a projection. The pre-2019 trend is based on the evolution of the global HDI value in the previous 20 years.
Source: Human Development Report Office calculations based on data from Barro and Lee (2018), IMF (2023), UNDESA (2022, 2023), UNESCO Institute for
Statistics (2023), United Nations Statistics Division (2023) and World Bank (2023).

Figure S.2 Recovery of Human Development Index (HDI)
values since the 2020–2021 decline is projected to behighly unequal
Country recovery by 2023 fromthe HDI setback in 2020 or 2021

51%
did not
recover100%
recovered49%
recovered

Least Developed
Countries

Organisation for Economic
Co-operation andDevelopment

Note: Least Developed Countries have low levels of income and face vulnerabilities that make them “the poorest and weakest segment” of the international community (https://www.un.org/ohrlls/content/about-least-developed​-countries). Recovery means that countries that suffered a decline in HDI value
in 2020 or 2021 are projected to reach or surpass their pre-decline HDI value
by 2023.
Source: Human Development Report Office calculations based on data from
Barro and Lee (2018), IMF (2023), UNDESA (2022, 2023), UNESCO Institutefor Statistics (2023), United Nations Statistics Division (2023) and World Bank
(2023).

4

Developed Countries are projected to have done so(figure S.2). After 20 years of steady progress, inequality between countries at the upper and lower
ends of the HDI has reversed course, ticking up eachyear since 2020 (figure S.3).
If the global HDI value continues to evolve below
the pre-­2019 trend, as it has since 2020, losses will bepermanent. Based on the 1999–2019 trend, the global HDI value was on track to cross the threshold defining very high human development (a value of 0.800)
by 2030—coinciding with the deadline to meet the
Sustainable Development Goals. Now, the world is
off track. Indeed, every region’s projected 2023 HDI
value falls below its pre-2019 trend. Whatever its
future trajectory, the global HDI value will capture­—­incompletely, if at all­—­many other important elements, such as the debilitating effects of chronic illness
or the spikes in mental health disorders or in violenceagainst women, all restricting people’s possibilities fortheir lives. For rich and poor countries alike some losses will never be recovered. Whatever the charts andindicators may say about people today, the Covid-­19
pandemic took some 15 million lives.7 We cannot getthem back. Nor the time siphoned off in so many ways­—­in isolation, in caregiving, in not attending school.
The HDI is an important, if crude, yardstick forhuman development. Just a few years ago wellbeing
had never been higher, poverty never lower. Yet people

HUMA N DEVELOP MENT R EP ORT 2023/2024

Figure S.3 Inequality between very high Human Development Index (HDI) and low HDI countries is increasing, bucking
long-­run declines

Difference in HDI value between
very high and low HDI countries
0.44

0.39

0.42

0.38

2017

2020

2023
(projected)

0.40

0.38

1990

1993

1996

1999

2002

2005

2008

2011

2014

2017

2020 2023(projected)

Note: The difference in HDI values for 2023 is based on projections.
Source: Human Development Report Office calculations based on data from Barro and Lee (2018), IMF (2023), UNDESA (2022, 2023), UNESCO Institute for
Statistics (2023), United Nations Statistics Division (2023) and World Bank (2023).

around the world were reporting high levels of sadness, stress and worry (figure S.4).8 Those self-­reported
measures have since risen for nearly 3 billion people.9
And while 9 in 10 people show unwavering support
for the ideal of democracy, there has been an increasein those supporting leaders who may undermine it:today, for the first time ever, more than half the global
population supports such leaders (­figure S.5).10
The uncertainty complex has cast a very long shadow on human development writ large, with recent
years marking perhaps an unfortunate and avoidable
fork in its path rather than a short-­lived setback.
What gives?
Progress feels harder to grasp, especially whenplanetary pressures are brought into view; ourstandard development measures are clearly missing some things. One of those things may be thedisempowerment of people­— ­gaps in human agency­—­which is taking combined hits from new configurations of global complexity and interdependence,
uncertainty, insecurity and polarization.
People are looking for answers and a way forward.
This can be channelled helpfully via shared ambition that brings everyone along (not necessarily
on everything) in areas of cooperation that are notzero-sum, enabled by cooperative narratives andinstitutions built on a bedrock of generalized trust.
Over the past 10 years both very high and high HDI
countries have improved their HDI values without
increasing planetary pressures, a shift from previous
trends of the two increasing together, so there are reasons to hope that this might be possible (figure S.6).
Or it can be channelled, as it seems now, into vicious cycles of demonizing blame games that breed,at best, suspicion and distrust and, at worst, prejudice, discrimination and violence.
Troublingly, populism has exploded, blowing past
last century’s peaks, which roughly corresponded toperiods of mismanaged globalization.11 That is happening alongside, and in many cases exploiting, wicked forms of polarization, such as the winnowing andhardening of narrow identities, a sort of coercion or
unfreedom enabled, if not outright celebrated, by anongoing fetishization of so-­called rational self-­interest.
People’s ability to determine for themselves what itmeans to live a good life, including defining and reassessing their responsibilities to other people and to theplanet, has been crowded out in many ways. Metastatic hands-­off dogma hides the raiding of the economicand ecological cookie jar. Dog-­eat-dog and beggar-­thy-neighbour mindsets harken back to mercantilist
eras. And policies and institutions­—­including those

Sn apshot — Breaking the gridlock

5

Figure S.4 Self-­reported stress rose in most countries, even before the Covid-­19 pandemic
Change in the percentage of people reporting experiencing stress,
2011–2019 (percentage points)
Increase
60

40

Low HDI
group

Medium HDI
group

High HDI
group

Very high HDIgroup

24 out of 30
countries

25 out of 32
countries

24 out of 40
countries

39 out of 59
countries

20

0

–20

–40

–60

–80

Decrease DI is Human Development Index.
H
Note: Values refer to the change in the percentage of people who reported experiencing stress “during a lot of the day yesterday.”
Source: Human Development Report Office, based on Gallup (2023).

that have mismanaged globalized market dynamics­—­
default to “me” before “we.”We are at an unfortunate crossroad. Polarizationand distrust are on a collision course with an ailing
planet. Insecurity and inequalities have a lot to dowith it. So does a constellation of disempoweringnarratives that engender defensive fatalism and catastrophic inertia­— ­all circumscribed and, in somesense fuelled by, dizzying political polarization.
What can we do to help turn things around? Quite
a lot.

Build a 21st century architecture for global public goods
First, we should build out a 21st century architecture
to deliver the global public goods that we all depend
on. It would function as a third track to international6

cooperation, complementing development assistance focused on poorer countries and humanitarianassistance focused on emergencies. These tracks are
not silos. Distinctively, a global public goods architecture would aim for transfers from rich countries
to poorer ones that advance goals for every country
to benefit. Every country has a chance to have a say,as well as an opportunity to contribute. As such, thisthird track is intrinsically multilateral.
Global public goods will require additional financing as a complement, rather than substitute for orcompetitor, to traditional development assistance.
The financing can come in many forms. For example, when some portion of an investment in a poorer
country generates global benefits, the corresponding
financing (or technology transfer) should tend to beconcessional, so that alignment is achieved between
who benefits (the rest of the world) and who pays (theHUMA N DEVELOP MENT R EP ORT 2023/2024

Figure S.5 The democracy paradox? Unwavering support for democracy but increasing support for leaders who
may undermine it
Percent of population that thinks positively
about leaders who may undermine democracy
60
Majority of population thinks
positively about democracy
but also about leaders who may undermine it
2017–202250
2010–2014

2005–200940

1994–1998
1999–2004
Majority of population thinks
positively about democracy
and leaders who do not undermine it

30
40

50

60

70

80

90

100

Percent of population that thinks positively about having a democratic system
Note: Data are population-­weighted averages for a panel of countries representing 76 percent of the global population. Percent of population on the vertical axis refers to people who responded that having a strong leader who does not have to bother with parliament and elections is “very good” or “fairly
good.” Percent of population on the horizontal axis refers to people who responded that having a democratic political system is “very good” or “fairly good.”
Source: Human Development Report Office based on data from multiple waves of the World Values Survey (Inglehart and others 2022).

rest of the world). The flipside is the case of hazards
or shocks that are not of a single country’s making.
Automatic triggers can be embedded in bonds orloan agreements, especially state-­contingent debt instruments, to help poorer countries cope with crisesthat they had little part in generating, as with climatechange. This would create more predictable conditions in navigating an uncertain world that could mobilize and attract private finance to those countries.

Dial down temperatures and push back polarization
Second, we need to dial down the temperature andpush back on polarization, which poisons practicallyeverything it touches and impedes international cooperation. Providing global public goods will help. So

will correcting misperceptions about other people’s
preferences and motivations. All too often people
make biased assumptions about other people, including people on the other side of political divides.
Often, people agree with one another more thanthey think. For example, while 69 percent of people around the world report being willing to sacrificesome of their income to contribute to climate change
mitigation, only 43 percent perceive others believing the same (a 26 percentage point misperceptiongap).12 The result is a false social reality of pluralistic
ignorance where incorrect beliefs about others hamstrings cooperation that, if recognized and corrected,
could help build collective action on climate.
Not all polarization can be reduced to misperception, however big a role it plays. That makes it important to create spaces of deliberation to bridge divides.

Sn apshot — Breaking the gridlock

7

Figure S.6 Reasons for hope: Improvements on the Human Development Index without increasing planetary pressures
Index of Planetary Pressures value
0.180
1990

0.160
0.140

Very high HDI
countries

2022

The HDI value of high HDI countries is approaching
the HDI value of very high HDI countries in1990 but with lower planetary pressures

0.120

2022

0.100
0.080

The 2022 HDI value of low HDI countries issimilar to the HDI value of medium HDI countries
in 2003 but with lower planetary pressures

0.060
0.040

Low HDIcountries
0.020
1990
0.000

0.350

1990

Medium HDI
countries

The 2022 HDI value of medium HDI countries
is similar to the HDI value of high HDI countries
in 2002 but with lower planetary pressures

1990
2022

0.450

High HDI
countries

0.550

2022

0.650

0.750

0.850

0.950

Human Development Index (HDI) value
Note: The Index of Planetary Pressures is constructed using the per capita levels of carbon dioxide emissions (production) and material footprint ineach country (it is 1 minus the adjustment factor for planetary pressures presented in table 7 in the Statistical Annex of the full Report).
Source: Human Development Report Office. See specific sources in tables 2 and 7 in the Statistical Annex of the full Report.

Citizen assemblies can function in this way, but they
are not the only means. Practical schemes to facilitate more deliberative processing of information canhelp counter the growing danger of people becoming
trapped in beliefs that have no basis in fact.13 In contexts of intergroup conflict, presenting information
in a frame that does not provoke anger can be depolarizing.14 Interventions that rely on qualitative andnarrative-­based approaches, such as storytelling andvignettes, are particularly effective.15
The key words are deliberate and deliberative. Polarization is more likely to self-­destruct badly than toself-­correct helpfully. Steady positive pressure that encourages empathy, builds interpersonal trust and emphasizes overlapping, shared identities is the way to go.

Narrow agency gaps
Third, we need to narrow agency gaps­—­fuelled inpart by the divergence between what people believe
is possible or probable and what is objectively possible.16 Agency gaps are also apparent in half of people
8

worldwide reporting that they have no or limited control over their lives and more than two-­thirds perceiving that they have little influence in the decisions of
their government (figure S.7).
To help narrow agency gaps, institutions need
to become more people-­centred, co-­owned andfuture-­oriented.
People-­centred is about placing ultimate objectives
in terms of human development and human security,
recognizing the interdependence of people and theplanet.
Co-­owned is about the fair distribution of the power
to set collective goals, the responsibilities to pursue
them and the resulting outcomes. It stresses the formation of social norms that cultivate the value of collective achievements and cooperative behaviour.17
Future-oriented is about focusing on what we canshape and create if we work together, enriching thespace for deliberation and agreement.18 In the face ofchallenges, a future-­oriented perspective opens possibilities for hope and creative resolve.
Tailoring these principles to different contexts will
put us on the road to productive dialogue and action,

HUMA N DEVELOP MENT R EP ORT 2023/2024

Figure S.7 Agency gaps in collective action are higher than those in control over one’s own life

Control over own life
5 in 10 or about half the world’s people report not being in control of their own lives

Voice in political system
7 in 10 or 68 percent of people report that they have little influencein the decisions of their government

Note: Agency is the ability of people to act as agents who can do effective things based on their commitments (Sen 2013). It is proxied by two indicators: the share of the population that reported feeling in control over their lives (measured on a scale of 1–10, where 1–3 indicates an acute agency
gap, 4–7 indicates a moderate agency gap and 8–10 indicates no agency gap) and the share of the population that reported feeling that their voice isheard in the political system (those who responded “A great deal” or “A lot”). Data are computed using microdata and equal weights across countries.
Source: Human Development Report Office based on data from wave 7 (2017–2022) of the World Values Survey (Inglehart and others 2022).

which must be flexible and iterative amid so much
uncertainty, for lessons to inform course corrections.
They will help us break through the tyranny of single
adversarial narratives and single exclusive identities.

They will help us better manage evolving global
interdependence.
They will help us cooperatively and peacefully
break through the global gridlock.

Sn apshot — Breaking the gridlock

9Notes1

See UNDP (2020, 2022a).

7

Msemburi and others 2023.

13

Fernbach and Van Boven 2022.

2

Watson and others 2022.

8

See UNDP (2022b).

14

Gur, Ayal and Halperin 2021.

3

See the United Nations Development Programme’s Global Dashboard for Vaccine Equity
at https://data.undp.org/insights/vaccine​-­equity.

9

15

Graeber, Roth and Zimmerman 2023; Vogt
and others 2016.

4

Vaidyanathan 2024. These pledges still fallshort of the annual loss and damages associated with climate change, which have been
estimated to be as high as $400 billion a year.

16

5

https://about.bnef.com/blog/global-­c lean​-energy-­investment-jumps-­17-hits-­1-8-­trillion​-in-­2023-according-­to-bloombergnef-­report/(accessed 31 January 2024).

Some 3 billion people report feeling worried
today, an increase of 687 million people overthe past decade; 2 billion people report sadness, 540 million people more than a decadeago; and 2.9 billion people experience stress,
an increase of 596 million people over the
past decade (Human Development Report
Office calculations based on data from Gallup2003). Daly and Macchia (2023) document
an increase in the prevalence of feelings ofemotional distress between 2009 and 2021.

Demeritt and Hoff 2023. Expanding agency
is about enhancing the ability of people
to be agents of change. Policies have notstressed enough the central role of agency
as a key pillar of human development.
Narrowing agency gaps allows people toparticipate in public reasoning and decisionmaking through institutions they have confidence in.

6

HDI data up to 2022 are from table 1 in theStatistical Annex of the full Report. Values for2023 are projections using the same data
sources used for that table.

17

On the importance of co-ownership for political institutions, see Allen (2023).

18

On the mobilization of the future as a politicalidea, see White (2023).

10

10

See Kurlantzick (2022), Nichols (2021) and
UNDP (2023).

11

Funke, Schularick and Trebesch 2023.

12

Andre and others 2024.

HUMA N DEVELOP MENT R EP ORT 2023/2024

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11

KEY TO H U M A N D E V E LO P M E N T I N D E X R A N KS , 202 2
Afghanistan

182

Dominican Republic

82

Liberia

177

Saint Lucia

108

Albania74

Ecuador

83

Libya

92

Algeria

93

Egypt

105

Liechtenstein

12Saint Vincent and
the Grenadines

81

Andorra35

El Salvador

127

Lithuania

37

Samoa

116

Angola150

Equatorial Guinea

133

Luxembourg

20

San Marino

43

Antigua and Barbuda

54

Eritrea

175

Madagascar

177

Sao Tome and Principe

141

Argentina

48

Estonia

31

Malawi172

Armenia76

Eswatini (Kingdom of)

142

Malaysia

63

Australia

10Ethiopia

176

Maldives

87

Austria

22

Fiji

104

Mali

188

Azerbaijan

89

Finland

12

Malta

25

Bahamas57

France28

Marshall Islands

102

Bahrain

34

Gabon

123

Mauritania

164

Bangladesh

129

Gambia174

Mauritius

72

Barbados

62

Georgia60

Mexico77

Belarus69

Germany

7

Belgium

12

Ghana

145

Micronesia(Federated States of)135

South Africa

110

Belize118

Greece33

Moldova (Republic of)86South Sudan

192

Benin

173

Grenada

73

Spain

27

Bhutan125

Guatemala

136

Bolivia (Plurinational State of)120

Guinea181

Bosnia and Herzegovina

80

Guinea-Bissau

179

Botswana

114

Guyana95

Brazil

89

Haiti

158

Brunei Darussalam

55

Honduras

138

Bulgaria

70

Hong Kong, China (SAR)

4

Burkina Faso

185

Hungary

47

Burundi187

Iceland

3

Cabo Verde

131

India

134

Cambodia

148

Indonesia

112

Cameroon

151

Iran (Islamic Republic of)78

Canada

18

Iraq

128

Central African Republic

191

Ireland

7

Chad

189

Israel

25

Chile

44

Italy

30

China

75

Jamaica

115

Colombia

91

Japan

24

Comoros

152

Jordan

99

Congo

149

Kazakhstan

67

Congo
(Democratic Republic of the)

180

Kenya

146

Costa Rica

64

Kiribati

137

Côte d’Ivoire

166

Croatia

39

Cuba

85

Cyprus29

Czechia

Korea (Democratic People’s Rep. of)

MonacoSaudi Arabia

40

Senegal169

Serbia65

Seychelles

67

Sierra Leone

184

Singapore

9

Slovakia

45

Slovenia

22

Solomon Islands

156

Somalia193

Mongolia

96

Sri Lanka

78

Montenegro

50

Sudan

170

Morocco120

Suriname

124

Mozambique183

Sweden5

Myanmar144

Switzerland

1

Namibia

142

Syrian Arab Republic

157

Nauru

122

Tajikistan

126

Nepal

146

Tanzania (United Republic of)

167

Netherlands

10

Thailand66

New Zealand

16

Timor-Leste

155

Nicaragua

130

Togo

163

Niger

189

Tonga

98

Nigeria161

Trinidad and Tobago

60

North Macedonia

83

Tunisia

101

Norway2

Türkiye

45

Oman

59

Turkmenistan

94

Pakistan164

Tuvalu

132

Palau

71

Uganda159

Palestine, State of111

Ukraine100

Panama57

United Arab Emirates

17

Papua New Guinea

154

United Kingdom

15

Paraguay102

United States

20

Peru

87

Uruguay

52

Philippines

113

Uzbekistan

106

Poland36

Vanuatu

140

Portugal

42

Qatar

40

Venezuela(Bolivarian Republic of)119

Viet Nam

107

Yemen

186

Zambia153

Zimbabwe

159

Korea (Republic of)

19

Kuwait49

Kyrgyzstan

117

32

Lao People’s
Democratic Republic

139

Romania53

Denmark5

Latvia37

Russian Federation

56

Djibouti

171

Lebanon109

Rwanda161

Dominica

97

Lesotho168

Saint Kitts and Nevis

51

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