Globally, we are off track to meet the 2030 Agenda and the promise of leaving no one behind. War and its horrific human tolls have resurged to its highest levels since World War II, wiping out hard-won development gains in an instant. Climates of polarization, distrust and malaise are on a collision course with an ailing planet.
Going forward, as societies become more linked in multiple ways, addressing shared challenges and the provision of global public goods will become ever more important. Although international trade in goods and capital flows have stabilized or even decreased, there is no region in the world today that is completely self-sufficient. Global interdependence is, in some respects, deepening as the dangerous planetary changes of the Anthropocene – pandemics, climate change, biodiversity loss – transcend borders, all while cross-border flows of information skyrockets, facilitated by digital technologies. At the border, policies may stop or slow down trade and capital flows but are less effective against a new set of global interdependencies.
Yet today, collective action on challenges ranging from climate change mitigation to peace and security, is frustratingly slow or stymied altogether. Lack of trust and polarization, both associated with insecurity, exacerbate the gridlock. Shared, interlinked global challenges, like the pandemic and its recovery, are outpacing our willingness and our institutions’ capacities to respond to them.
Why, despite all our riches and technologies, are we so stuck? How do we get unstuck? Is it possible to mobilize action to address globally shared challenges in a world that is intensively polarized?
The 2023-2024 Human Development Report: Breaking the Gridlock seeks to address these questions. It argues for a reimagining of Global Public Goods, which allows us to move beyond narrow zero-sum thinking and supports cooperation even as we have diverging interests and views. It also identifies ways to ease polarization, which is putting up barriers to action, and to narrow agency gaps to enable people to feel more in control of our shared future.
Programme
Opening
Mario Biggeri, SPES project – University of Florence
Welcome remarks
Agostino Inguscio, UNDP Rome Centre
HDR 2023-2024 Presentation
Heriberto Tapia, UNDP HDRO
Panel discussion
Mario Biggeri, SPES project – University of Florence
Enrico Giovannini, ASVIS
Jane Mariara, Partnership for Economic Policy
Michaela Saisana, JRC Competence Centre on Composite Indicators and Scoreboards
Q&A Session
Closing
Agostino Inguscio, UNDP Rome Centre
Mario Biggeri, SPES project – University of Florence
The Human Development Report Launch is part of the Festival dello Sviluppo Sostenibile
The Festival of Sustainable Development is Italy’s largest initiative to raise awareness and mobilise citizens, the younger generations, businesses, associations and institutions on issues of economic, social and environmental sustainability.
The Festival dello Sviluppo Sostenibile has been held in Rome at the Palazzo delle Esposizioni (via Nazionale, 194).
