RESILIENCE BY DESIGN

This joint publication by the Human Development Report Office (HDRO) and Generali examines how climate change is reshaping health risks, placing growing strain on healthcare systems, and threatening progress in human development. The report highlights why strengthening health-system resilience is now central to safeguarding development gains in an increasingly uncertain world.

Climate change, health, and human development

Climate change is rapidly shaping health outcomes, social vulnerability, and human development worldwide. Rising temperatures, more frequent heatwaves, worsening air pollution, and the spread of climate-sensitive diseases are interacting with existing vulnerabilities and already strained health systems, creating compounding risks for people and societies.

Resilience by Design: Strengthening Health and Human Development in a Changing Climate situates these dynamics within a broader global development context. Building on the Human Development Report’s framing of an emerging “uncertainty complex,” the publication shows how environmental, social, and economic risks increasingly reinforce one another, challenging institutions and systems designed for a more stable world.

Data, modelling, and Human Climate Horizons

The publication emphasizes the importance of improved data, modelling, and spatially granular analysis to better understand how climate hazards translate into human development outcomes. Developed through a partnership between HDRO and Generali, the report combines climate-risk modelling with human development analysis.

The work also draws on insights from Human Climate Horizons (HCH)—HDRO’s global platform developed with the Climate Impact Lab—which provides national and subnational projections of climate hazards and their potential impacts on people, including health, mortality, labour productivity, as well as impacts on agriculture and coastal areas from sea level rise. These tools help connect long-term climate trends to localized development risks, supporting more targeted and people-centred adaptation planning.

Pathways forward: resilience by design

The report argues that responding effectively to climate-driven health risks requires a dual strategy: ambitious mitigation to limit long-term warming, and accelerated adaptation to strengthen health systems now. Priority actions include redesigning care models to shift preventive and chronic services closer to communities; accelerating digital health solutions and interoperable data systems; investing in climate-resilient health infrastructure; strengthening and retaining health workforces; and expanding early-warning systems and public health communication.

The publication also highlights the role of collaboration across public and private actors in addressing these challenges. While governments remain central to ensuring universal access to healthcare, partnerships can support innovation, improve risk management, and help scale solutions in the face of rising and increasingly systemic climate risks.