The Human Development Report Office (HDRO) is continuing to put a spotlight on a new generation of inequalities with launch events and presentations around the globe on the 2019 Human Development Report (2019 HDR).
On 28 January, the report was launched in Geneva, Switzerland with the participation of Tatiana Valovaya, Director-General of UN Geneva; Abdalah Mokssit, Secretary of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change; and Susan Teltscher, Head of the Human Capacity Building Division of the International Telecommunication Union, among other high-level officials. The discussion focused these new generation of inequalities– under the shadow of the climate crisis and technological change— demand new approaches to policies at national and global levels.
The launch event in Bonn, Germany, on 31 January convened voices from across the world that stressed how a purely economic lens is not enough to understand inequality today : gaps key elements of human development such as health, education, dignity and respect for human rights are increasingly determining people’s opportunities in the 21st century and beyond. Toily Kurbanov, Deputy Executive Coordinator of UN Volunteers; Yemi Ahouanmenou, Chief Economist at the Ministry of Finance of Benin; Thu Huong Dao, UN Volunteer Disability Rights Officer in Viet Nam; and Andreas Proksch, Director General of Sector and Global Programmes at GIZ, were among the participants of this debate. Around 120 participants joined the event in person and 650 more participated via live stream.
On 3 February, the HDR was launched in Seoul, Republic of Korea, with opening remarks by Kang Jeong-sik, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Korea; Kim Sung-han, Dean of Korea University Graduate School of International Affairs; and Stephan Klingebiel, Director of the UNDP Seoul Policy Centre. The launch ceremony was followed by a panel discussion that aimed to understand key considerations in inequalities from various viewpoints including the data revolution, environmental sustainability, technology and gender.
The event in Nur Sultan, Kazakhstan, on 6 February marked the joint launch of the global HDR and the country’s national HDR on urbanization. Yakup Beris, Resident Representative of UN Development Programme (UNDP) in Kazakhstan, and Shigeo Katsu, President of Nazarbayev University, joined government officials, academic experts and civil society representatives to explore the relevant drivers of inequalities at the national level and their implications in global contexts.
In the last month, the 2019 HDR was also launched elsewhere around the world in Cameroon, Georgia, Timor Leste, Tunisia, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, and was presented at the Inter-American Development Bank in Washington D.C. by Luis Felipe López-Calva, UNDP Regional Director for Latin America and the Caribbean.
