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 explores these issues and offers a platform for strategic discussion on how to move beyond narrow zero-sum thinking and support cooperation even as we have diverging interests and views.

Inequalities in human development are a roadblock to achieving the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. They are not just about disparities in income and wealth. They cannot be accounted for simply by using summary measures of inequality that focus on a single dimension. And they will shape the prospects of people that may live to see the 22nd century. The 2019 Report explores inequalities in human development by going beyond income beyond averages and beyond today. It asks what forms of inequality matter and what drives them recognizing that pernicious inequalities are generally better thought of as a symptom of broader problems in a society and economy. It also asks what policies can tackle those drivers—policies that can simultaneously help nations to grow their economies improve human development and reduce inequality.

This report takes a broad view of the link between work and human development. Work is a critical tool for economic growth and security poverty reduction and gender equality. It enables full participation in society while affording people a sense of dignity and worth. Humans working together not only increase their material well-being they also accumulate a wide body of knowledge that serves as the basis for cultures and civilizations. The report finds that work enhances human development when policies are taken to expand productive remunerative and satisfying work opportunities. Workers' skills and potentials are enhanced their well-being in terms of rights safety and benefits are ensured with targeted interventions and an agenda incorporating decent work a new Social Contract and a Global Deal is pursued.