UN Human Development Report 2015
17.12.2015 - 07:34
European countries have hit the jackpot: Six of them are at the top ten of the UN Human Development Report 2015 – as for many years in a row: Norway, Switzerland, Denmark, The Netherlands, Germany, Ireland. The leading group also includes North American and Australian countries.
We can be so happy and grateful about living in countries that provide us such great opportunities for our personal development.
I wish you an enjoyable christmas and a brillant new year!
The UN Human Development Report 2015 compares the gross national income per capita, and in addition, life expectancy and education period. Thereby, it allows a good view of the development potential of a country.
The main messages this year (from Selim Jahan, Director of the Human development Report office and lead author of the report):
- Sustainable work and Sustainable Development Goals are mutually synergetic. Sustainable work represents work that simultaneously enhances human development and ensures environmental sustainability. For example, if work is done for providing solar power panels for poorer households, the well-being of those households in terms of better standard of living is increased, but at the same time it is good for environment.
- The world of work is changing fast in which the what, where, when, who and how of work are changing rapidly. The two main drivers of such changes are globalization and digital revolution. Today the global trade in goods and services stands at $23 trillion, almost double the amount it used to be 10 years ago. There are more than 7 billion mobile subscriptions and more than 3 billion people use internet worldwide.
- Impressive human progress has been made over the last quarter of a century and work has contributed to that. Over the last 25 years, more than 2 billion people have been lifted out of low human development and more than a billion people have escaped extreme poverty. The work of a billion people in agriculture, the creativity of 455 million entrepreneurs, the helping hands of 970 million volunteers worldwide has contributed to this progress.
- Gender imbalances in paid and unpaid work are constraining women’s choices, capabilities, and opportunities. Men dominate the world of paid work, and women are mostly engaged in the world of unpaid work.
- Enhancing human development through work would require a set of concrete policy options and an agenda for action. The issue of an action agenda has already been alluded to by the Administrator in her remarks. A set of concrete and strategic policy options would have to focus on strategies for creating work opportunities, strategies for workers’ well-being in terms of benefits and rights; and strategies for targeted actions for specific groups (e.g. people with disabilities).
