🇨🇳🇺🇳 Today, UNDP’s Human Development Report Office welcomed a delegation from China’s Development Research Centre of the State Council (DRC) and the Center for International Knowledge on Development (CIKD), led by DRC Vice President Zhang Qi, for an exchange on human development research and opportunities for collaboration. HDRO Director Pedro Conceição shared the office’s recent work and flagship Human Development Reports, while CIKD Executive Vice President Wang Jinzhao presented DRC and CIKD’s research priorities on global development. Discussions explored opportunities for knowledge sharing and potential joint research to advance human development, with attention to its multiple dimensions. Thank you to our DRC and CIKD colleagues for the visit and the exchange of perspectives. We look forward to continuing the dialogue on advancing human development. #HumanDevelopment #GlobalDevelopment #KnowledgeSharing #InternationalCooperation #Partnerships

🇺🇳🌍 As world leaders gather in New York for the United Nations General Assembly, much of the agenda turns on the same underlying question: what kind of relationship do our societies have with nature? Energy transitions, coasts and food systems, forests and rivers, air and water - these are not only environmental issues. They shape whether people can live the lives they value. That question sits at the center of UNDP's forthcoming 2026 Human Development Report: how can human development advance so that people and nature thrive together? The report examines how societies can build more constructive relationships among people, between societies, and between people and nature, arguing that the answer lies in more human development, not less. It advances an aspirational approach to planetary futures, setting out the conditions in which both people and nature can flourish. It will also introduce a new measure of how far countries are creating those conditions, shifting the question from the damage done to nature towards the relationship societies build with it. Advancing human development and safeguarding nature are shared responsibilities, and international cooperation is essential to both. @UNDP @UN #UNGA #HumanDevelopment #HDR2026 #PeopleAndNature #InternationalCooperation #UNDP #HDRO

🇰🇷 This week, HDRO contributed to discussions in the Republic of Korea on moving beyond GDP and expanding people’s choices, capabilities and opportunities. At Korea Social Value Festa, HDRO’s Dr. Heriberto Tapia presented “Beyond GDP: A New Paradigm for Development” as part of a session exploring how the social and solidarity economy can improve people’s lives and how social value can help connect global development thinking with local action. 🎓 Later in the week, he also delivered a public lecture at Korea University titled “People, Possibilities and Progress: AI and the Future of Human Development Measurement.” Drawing on the 2025 Human Development Report, the lecture explored how societies’ choices about AI can strengthen human agency, advance well-being and support inclusive development. It also considered how development measurement should evolve towards 2030 and beyond, informed by the United Nations Beyond GDP agenda and Korea’s experience in measuring and advancing social value. #HDRO #HumanDevelopment #BeyondGDP #ArtificialIntelligence #UNDP

🇨🇮 From 15–17 September, HDRO participated in a technical workshop in Côte d’Ivoire on measuring the country’s progress using human development indices. Co-organized by the Ministry of Planning and Development, UNESCO and UNDP Côte d’Ivoire, the three-day workshop brought together key government stakeholders to strengthen their capacity to produce and use human development data and collaborate on accurate and timely reporting. 📊 Yanchun Zhang and Nabamallika Dehingia from the HDRO team presented key human development indices and the methodologies underpinning their calculation and interpretation, helping participants understand how these measures can inform assessments of development progress. 🤝 Thank you to all participating stakeholders for their engagement and support. @UNDP @UNESCO #CotedIvoire #DataForDevelopment #CapacityBuilding #UNDP #HDRO

أطلق مجلس الإمارات للتوازن بين الجنسين، بالتعاون مع مكتب تقرير التنمية البشرية في برنامج الأمم المتحدة الإنمائي، دراسة مشتركة هي الأولى من نوعها لتبادل المعرفه، توثّق مسيرة دولة الإمارات في التنمية البشرية والتوازن بين الجنسين على مدى أكثر من ثلاثة عقود. وتربط الدراسة بين المؤشرات الدولية والسياسات والإصلاحات الوطنية التي أسهمت في تحقيق تقدم تنموي ملموس وقابل للقياس. اكتشفوا الدراسة عبر موقعنا الإلكتروني: gbc.gov.ae/data-resources-ce… The UAE Gender Balance Council, in collaboration with the UNDP Human Development Report Office, has launched a Landmark, first-of-its-kind joint publication for knowledge exchange documenting the UAE’s journey in human development and gender balance over more than three decades. The publication links global indicators with the national policies and reforms that have contributed to tangible, measurable development progress. Explore the publication on our website: gbc.gov.ae/data-resources-ce…

🌍📉 Fertility decline through a human development lens Global fertility has fallen sharply over the past three decades, from 3.3 children per woman in 1990 to 2.2 in 2023. 🔎 New research by HDRO’s Pedro Conceição and Yu-Chieh Hsu, in collaboration with Michael Geruso and Dean Spears from the The University of Texas at Austin and Diane Coffey from the Research Institute for Compassionate Economics, examines this decline through a human development lens. 🌐 Across 193 countries, the relationship between human development and fertility observed in 1990 closely predicts differences in fertility rates more than three decades later. 🎓 The findings also suggest that the relationship extends beyond income. Improvements in health and education are more closely associated with declining fertility than increases in income alone. 🧭 This matters because human development changes the context in which people make decisions about family formation. As people live longer and healthier lives, gain more education, and have greater opportunities and agency, the choices and trade-offs surrounding parenthood also change. Families may choose to have fewer children, invest more in each child, and rely less on children for economic security. 💡Seen through this lens, declining fertility is not simply a demographic trend. It is closely connected to broader transformations in people’s lives, capabilities and choices. 🌍 This perspective can also help explain why low fertility has become increasingly common across countries at very different income levels: many of the underlying changes are dimensions of human development that extend well beyond income alone. #HDRFacts #Fertility #HumanDevelopment #DemographicChange @UNDP

🌍 THE FUTURE IS A COLLECTIVE RESPONSIBILITY. We cannot build the future through government action alone. It takes all of us— government, the private sector, communities, parents and, most importantly, young people themselves. 🤝 We must move beyond short-term projects and invest in long-term, integrated development — from: 🌱 Agriculture ✈️ Tourism 🎓 Technical & teacher education ⚖️ Gender equality 🏗️ Infrastructure ♻️ The circular economy 🏠 Reintegration for those returning home Because young people are not just beneficiaries of development. 👉 They are partners. 👉 They are innovators. 👉 They are leaders. 👉 They are actors in shaping the future. OUR YOUTH. OUR FUTURE. OUR COLLECTIVE RESPONSIBILITY. @MofeaGambia @HDRUNDP @UNDPWACA @UNDPAfrica @UNGambia @UNDP @Presidency_GMB @BarrowPresident @MofeaGambia @UNDPEU @mmashologu1 @EvelynEdroma #NHDR2025 #GambiaNHDR2025 #NHDRUNDP #HumanDevelopment

🎬 All set for the launch of the 2025 Gambia National Human Development Report! 🇬🇲 Final preparations are complete, registration is underway, and guests are arriving as we prepare to launch Expanding Opportunities for the Dynamic Youth of The Gambia: A Call to Action. Today, we bring together voices, ideas and partnerships around a shared ambition: expanding opportunities and unlocking the potential of young Gambians. The stage is set for action. 🚀 @MofeaGambia @HDRUNDP @UNDPWACA @UNDPAfrica @UNGambia @UNDP @ahunnaeziakonwa @Presidency_GMB @BarrowPresident @MofeaGambia @UNDPEU @mmashologu1 @UNDPAfrica @EvelynEdroma #NHDR2025 #GambiaNHDR2025 #NHDRUNDP #HumanDevelopment

Children are a third of the people the Global Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) covers. They are more than half of the people it finds living in poverty. Of the 1.1 billion people in acute multidimensional poverty across 109 countries, 586 million are under 18. Globally, 27.8% of children are multidimensionally poor - more than double the 13.5% rate among adults. Poverty measured this way is not only about income. It counts overlapping deprivations in health, education and living standards - the things that shape what a child can become, at exactly the age when that is being decided. The 2025 MPI report adds a further layer: nearly 80% of people in multidimensional poverty live in areas exposed to high heat, drought, floods or air pollution. The children in these figures are largely the same children. Deprivations that overlap in childhood tend not to stay in childhood. That is why measuring them - and acting on them early - matters for human development. Source: OPHI and UNDP, Global Multidimensional Poverty Index 2025 - Overlapping Hardships: Poverty and Climate Hazards (2025). @undp @ophi_oxford Read the report: hdr.undp.org/content/2025-gl… #HDRFacts #ChildPoverty #SDG1 #HumanDevelopment

🌍 We are more united on climate than we think. Globally, 69% of people say they are willing to give up some of their income to help address climate change. But people estimate that only 43% of others would do the same. 📊 That 26 percentage-point gap is a case of pluralistic ignorance: a false social reality in which people hold systematically wrong beliefs about what everyone around them wants. It matters because people cooperate when they believe others will. Underestimate the willingness of others, and support that already exists goes unexpressed, and unacted on. This is ultimately a question of agency: the capacity of people to shape their own future. 💡 The 2023/24 Human Development Report identifies gaps in agency, not gaps in willingness, as a central reason collective action stalls. The encouraging part: misperceptions are correctable. 🌱 Showing people what their neighbours actually think is among the more tractable barriers to climate cooperation. Source: UNDP, Human Development Report 2023/24: Breaking the Gridlock - Reimagining Cooperation in a Polarized World (2024). 📖 Read the report: hdr.undp.org/content/human-d… #HDRFacts #ClimateAction #HumanDevelopment #Agency @undp

3.1 billion women and girls, over 90% of the world's female population, live in countries that perform low or middle on both women's empowerment and gender parity. Fewer than 1% live in a country that combines high empowerment with a small gender gap. Measured by @UNDP and @UN_Women's Twin Indices across 114 countries. The widest deficits sit in political and economic decision-making, labour market participation and financial inclusion, and freedom from violence. And rising prosperity is not resolving them on its own: more than half the countries performing poorly on the two indices are high or very high human development countries. Closing these gaps requires deliberate policy - not growth alone. 📚 Source: UNDP and UN Women, The Paths to Equal: Twin Indices on Women's Empowerment and Gender Equality(2023). 🔗 Read the report: unwomen.org/sites/default/fi… #HDRFacts #GenderEquality #SDG5 #HumanDevelopment

⚖️ No country has achieved full gender parity. Fewer than 1% of women and girls live in a country that combines high women's empowerment with a small gender gap. 📘 That finding comes from The Paths to Equal, in which @undp and @UN_Women introduced two indices designed to be read together. 🔹 The Women's Empowerment Index measures what women are actually able to do and be - across health, education, labour and financial inclusion, decision-making, and freedom from violence. It was the first UN gender index to treat violence against women as a dimension in its own right. 🔸 The Global Gender Parity Index measures how women fare relative to men across the first four of those dimensions. 🌍 Across 114 countries: • Women are empowered to achieve, on average, only 60% of their full potential. • Women achieve, on average, 72% of what men do - a gap of 28%. • 3.1 billion women and girls live in countries performing low or middle on both counts. ⚠️ The widest gaps lie in political and economic decision-making, labour market participation and financial inclusion, and freedom from violence. 💡 Why measure both? Because closing the gap between women and men does not, by itself, give women the agency and opportunities to shape their own lives, and because development alone does not deliver either. More than half of the countries performing poorly on the two indices are high or very high human development countries. 📚 Source: UNDP and UN Women, The Paths to Equal: Twin Indices on Women's Empowerment and Gender Equality(2023). 🔗 Read the report: lnkd.in/evi_jQSZ #HDRFacts #GenderEquality #SDG5 #HumanDevelopment

We are hiring! The Human Development Report Office (HDRO) at UNDP is seeking a Data Management Specialist to join the team. Position: Data Management Specialist Level: IPSA-10 Duty station: Bonn, Germany Contract type: IPSA Position number: 231772 Job requisition: 35680 Application deadline: 6 August 2026 at 11:59 p.m. New York time External applicants: lnkd.in/gMEAdKJZ Internal applicants: lnkd.in/gg3QVzDe #UNDP #HumanDevelopment #DataManagement #Hiring #JobOpportunity

Human development is not only about expanding opportunities. It is also about expanding agency - people’s ability to act, make choices, pursue shared goals and shape their own lives. Yet around half of the world’s people report having no or limited control over their lives. Narrowing agency gaps can support the pursuit of common goals and strengthen collective action. Institutions can link human agency and collective action at scale by being people-centered, co-owned and future-oriented. Source: Human Development Report Office based on data from wave 7 (2017–2022) of the World Values Survey (Inglehart and others 2022). Learn more: hdr.undp.org/ #HumanDevelopment #HumanAgency #HDIFacts #HDR #HDI