ECONOMYNEXT – Sri Lanka slid 0.001 points to 89th place among 193 countries ranked on the United Nations Human Development Index (HDI) for 2023, as globally human development progress slowed to a 35-year low, a United Nations Development Program (UNDP) report found. But South Asia saw in 2023 the most rapid increase in the HDI value, increasing by 4.8 percent from 2022.
The 2025 Human Development Report -“A matter of choice: people and possibilities in the age of Artificial Intelligence (AI)” analyses development progress across a range of indicators known as the Human Development Index (HDI), which includes achievements in health and education, and levels of income.
Projections for 2024 reveal stalled progress on the HDI in all regions across the world, UNDP said, with human development progress experiencing an “unprecedented slowdown”.
Instead of seeing sustained recovery following the period of exceptional crises of 2020-2021, the report reveals unexpectedly weak progress. Excluding those crisis years, the meagre rise in global human development projected in this year’s report is the smallest increase since 1990.
“Amidst this global turmoil, we must urgently explore new ways to drive development,” said Achim Steiner, UNDP Administrator.
“For decades, we have been on track to reach a very high human development world by 2030, but this deceleration signals a very real threat to global progress.
“If 2024’s sluggish progress becomes ‘the new normal’, that 2030 milestone could slip by decades – making our world less secure, more divided, and more vulnerable to economic and ecological shocks.”
For the fourth year in a row, inequality between low HDI and very high HDI countries continued to increase, according to the report.
This reverses a long-term trend that has seen a reduction in inequalities between wealthy and poor nations.
Development challenges for countries with the lowest HDI scores are especially severe – driven by increasing trade tensions, a worsening debt crisis and the rise of jobless industrialization.
The report says Artificial Intelligence (AI) could reignite development.
“As Artificial Intelligence continues its rapid advance across so many aspects of our lives, we should consider its potential for development. New capabilities are emerging almost daily, and while AI is no panacea, the choices we make hold the potential to reignite human development and open new pathways and possibilities,” Steiner said.
UNDP has categorised Sri Lanka under “high” development country despite a dropping in indices. HDI assesses the growth in three main components: a long and healthy life, access to knowledge and a decent standard of living.
Life expectancy at birth has climbed 1 year to 77.48 years in 2023 while expected years of schooling was marginally down at 13.13 years in 2023 from 13.58 years in 2018. Gross National Income per Capita steeply dropped 1764 purchasing power parity/$ to 12,616 in 2023 from 2018, following the Easter Sunday attack, the Covid pandemic and Sri Lanka’s currency crisis.
Sri Lanka’s warring neighbours India and Pakistan have climbed in the indices. India has gained a growth of 0.009 points to 0.685 in HDI while Pakistan remained flat at 0.5444, ranked 143. Bangladesh rose by 0.005 points in the index to rank at 130, a year ahead of the country’s deadly July uprising. Bangladesh and India share the ranking 130.
The UNDP report outlines three critical areas for action:
– Building an economy where people collaborate with AI rather than compete against it
– Embedding human agency across the full AI lifecycle, from design to deployment
– Modernizing education and health systems to meet 21st-Century demands
The report contains the results of a new survey that showed people are realistic yet hopeful about the change AI can bring.
Half of respondents worldwide think that their jobs could be automated. An even larger portion — six in ten — expect AI to impact their employment positively, creating opportunities in jobs that may not even exist today.
The report advocates for a human-centered approach to AI – which has the potential to fundamentally redesign approaches to development. The survey results show that across the world people are ready for this kind of ‘reset’.
“The choices we make in the coming years will define the legacy of this technological transition for human development,” said Pedro Conceição, Director of UNDP’s Human Development Report Office. “With the right policies and focus on people, AI can be a crucial bridge to new knowledge, skills, and ideas that can empower everyone from farmers to small business owners.” (Colombo/May07/2024)
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