2023/24 HDR Acknowledgments

How to make sense of producing a Human Development Report at a time of war? Not only of wars between and within countries but also with our planet, with ourselves and with our future? These questions weighed heavily on our minds. But over time they strengthen the resolve of the team, fueled by the conviction that the recurring messages of successive Human Development Reports are more relevant than ever. They bear repeating and reaffirming, because even though they may have been said many times before, they seem to be pushed more and more into the background. The primacy of people as the purpose and agents of development. The crucial importance of enabling people to live free from want, fear and indignity, still relevant 30 years after the introduction of the concept of human security in the 1994 Human Development Report. Redressing inequalities in human development.

This, as other Human Development Reports, is an examination of the barriers that enable people to live their lives to their full potential and what to do about them. And here there is much that is new in the world today. Building on the 2021/2022 Human Development Report, which identified polarization as a barrier to addressing shared challenges as one of the novel layers of uncertainty confronting the world, this Report does a deep dive into the reasons why polarization is increasing, how that creates gridlock in collective action and how to reimagine cooperation to break the gridlock. The Report was possible only because of the encouragement, generosity and contributions of so many, recognized only imperfectly and partially in these acknowledgments.

The members of the Advisory Board are recognized next to the report team, given their fundamental contributions to the framing and analysis in the report. But we would like to recognize in particular cochair President Tharman Shanmugaratnam, who has graciously and generously been co-chair since 2019, and has agreed to remain in this role even after assuming high office. We, and everyone interested in human development and development more broadly, owe President Tharman a huge debt of gratitude.

Complementing the advice from our Advisory Board, the Report’s Statistical Advisory Panel provided guidance on several methodological and data aspects of the Report—particularly those related to calculating the Report’s human development indices. We are grateful to all the panel members: Mario Biggieri, Camilo Ceita, Ludgarde Coppens, Koen Decancq, Thomas Helgeson, Jason Hickel, Milorad Kovacevic, Steve Macfeelys, Silvia Montoya, Shantanu Mukherjee, Ekaterina Poleshchuk, Michaela Saisana, Hany Torky, Mohd Uzir and Dany Wazen.

Appreciation is also extended for all the data, written inputs and peer reviews of draft chapters to the Report, including those by Barbara Adams, Scott Barret, Cornelia Betsch, Robert Böhm, Wolfgang Buchholz, Leonardo Bursztyn, Fernando Casal Bertoa, Patricia Clavin, Tiago Devesa, Charles Efferson, Charlotte Fiedler, Odd-Helge Fjeldstad, Katha Freistein, Karla Daniela González, Kenneth Harttgen, Nicole Hassoun, Luca Henkel, Joseph Henrich, Tadashi Hirai, Ingrid Home Sjursen, Eduardo Ibarra-Olivio, Solava Ibrahim, Otto Ilona, Julia Leininger, Andrea Marinucci, Ronald Mendoza, José Antonio Ocampo, Laura Pereira, Hannah Pool, Marcela Rios Tobar, Todd Sandler, Emanuele Sapienza, Armin von Schiller, Tobias Schillings, Phillip Sprengholz, Andrew Thompson, Jurel Yap and Sarah White.

We are especially thankful for our close collaborations with our partners: the International Science Council, including Peter Gluckman and Megha Sud; Lloyd’s Register Foundation, including Suela Aksoy and Ed Morrow; McKinsey Global Institute, including Anu Madgavkar; Peace Research Institute Oslo, including Siri Aas Rustad, Andrew Arasmith, Kristine Helskog and Gudrun Østby; South-North Scholars, including Nino Nadirashvili and Charlie Zong; the Climate Impact Lab, including Hannah Hess; Gallup, including Jon Clifton and Andrew Rzepa; the Global Policy Laboratory, including Solomon Hsiang, Jonathan Proctor and Luke Sherman; the Human Development and Capability Association, including Ann Mitchell and Melanie Walker; the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, including Luis Gomez Echeverri, Pratik Patil and Elena Rovenskaya; the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative, including Sabina Alkire, Maya Evans, Alexandra Fortacz and Usha Kanagaratnam; the World Bank, including Indermit Gill and Luis Felipe López-Calva; the World Inequality Lab, including Lucas Chancel; as well as research collaborations with Ingvild Almås, David Blanchflower, Alexander Bryson, Erle Ellis, Nicholas Depsky, Paul Hufe, Diren Kocakusak, Justin E. Lane, Stephen Sepaniak and F. LeRon Shults.

Several consultations with thematic and regional experts and numerous informal consultations with many individuals without a formal advisory role were held in the process of preparing this year’s Report. We are grateful for input in these consultations from Ima Abdul Rahim, Lina Abirafeh, Jeremy Adelman, Arun Agrawal, Aroe Ajani, Fonteh Akum, Henry Alinaitwe, Ingvild Almås, Tariq Al-Olaimy, Sherine Al-Shawarby, Phillip Apuuli Kasaija, Elsie Attafuah, Tan Sri Azman Hj Mokhtar, Joe Bak-Coleman, Anne Bardsley, Carl Bergstrom, Amar Bhattacharya, Debapriya Bhattacharya, Haroon Bhorat, Roberto Bissio, Lia Brazil, Carlos Brown, Joanna Bryson, Vural Çakır, Miguel Centeno, Tan Sri Dato Seri Jeffrey Cheah, Sysan Clayton, Sarah Cliffe, Dawnelle Clyne, Flavio Comim, Alistair Cook, Vanesa D’Alessandre, Yves Daccord, Isabel de Saint Malo, Dagomar Degroot, Faisal Devji, Catherine D’Ignazio, Ishac Diwan, Jamie Drummond, Jaco Eyelu, Nadim Farajalla, Hege Fisknes, Peter Frankopan, Jemima Garcia-Godos, Nilanjan Ghosh, Andrew Grotto, John Haldon, Corinne Heckmann, Oli Henman, Luis Hernán Vargas, Eria Hisali, Karla Hoff, Nadim Houry, Saleemul Huq, Nigar Islamli, Andry Ivanov, Jennifer Jacquet, Rasha Jarhum, Xu Jin, Mitzi Jonelle Tan, Tehmina Kaoosji, Ibrahim Kasirye, Lina Khatib, Julius Kiiza, Ruth Kitamirike, Martin Korte, Nagesh Kumar, Oliver Lacey Hall, Michèle Lamont, Lyse Langlois, Julia Leininger, Sharachchandra Lele, Hod Lipson, Genevieve Lively, Hela LotzSisitka, Winnifred Louis, Fatmata Lovetta Sesay, Tan Sri Jamilah Mahmod, Andrés Malamud, Beckie Malay, Yadvinder Malhi, Kanchan K. Malik, Heghine Manasyan, Emma Marris, Steve McCorriston, Tarik Megerisi, Emel Memis, Rana Mitter, Roman Mogilevskii, Petra Molnar, Samar Muhareb, Khalid Mustafa Medani, Mwambutsya Ndebesa, Sjeila Ngatria, Dianah Ngui Muchai, Ibrahim Okumu, Iliana Olivié, Margie Ong, Mavis Owusu-Gyamfi, Foteini Papagioti, Toril-Iren Pedersen, Tawana Petty, Seeta Prabhu, Cristelle Pratt, Satin Seri Sunita Rajakumar, Michael Robbins, Emma Ruttkamp-Bloem, Silvia Salvatici, Marc Saner, Mahendhiran Sanggaran Nair, Carlos Scartascini, Mario Scharfbilli, Kareem Shaheen, Binyam Sisay Mendisu, Scott Smith, Masashi Soga, Hema Sridar, Erika Stael von Holstein, Abida Suleri, Zeynep Tufekci, Gatoloaifaana Tilianamua Afamasaga, Lucas Tse, Tania Vásquez Luque, Harvey Whitehouse, Deborah Willing, John Willshire, Jiajun Xu, Ong Keng Yong, Zhang Yujun, Anis Yuszal Yusoff and Yingqin Zheng.

We are thankful for especially close dialogues at Duke University, with Stephanie  Alt  Lamm, Sarah  Bermeo, Nadia Chamberlain, Judith Kelley, Anirudh Krishna, Eddy Malesky and Kerilyn Shewel; at the University of Chicago, with Natalie Arsenault, Alison Baulos, Luis Bettencourt, Christopher Blattman, Emily Grant, Michael Greenstone, Gary Herrigel and Mathias Staisch; at Georgetown University, with Dagomar Degroot; and at Yale University, with David Alzate, David Engerman, Jessica Faieta, Ardina Hasanbasri, Jim Levinsohn, Costas Meghir, Aishwarya Ratan, Ernesto Zedillo and with Yale Greenberg World Fellow Emma Sky. We appreciate the collaboration of academics from the South-South Global Thinkers.

Further support was also extended by others too numerous to mention here. Consultations are listed at https://hdr.undp.org/towards-hdr-2023. Contributions, support and assistance from many colleagues across the UN family is gratefully acknowledged. They include the Executive Office of the Secretary-General, through Michèle Griffin; the UN Office of South-South Cooperation, including Dima Al-Khatib, Zanofer Ismalbebbe and Naveeda Nazir; the United Nations SDG Action Campaign, including Xavier Longan, Marina Ponti and Olcay Tetik; the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women, including Ginette Azcona and Papa Seck; the International Labour Organization, including Rafael Díaz de Medina, Youcef Ghellab, Roger Gomis, Steven Kapsos and Sangeon Lee; the United Nations Population Division, including Patrick Gerland; the United Nations Environment Programme, including Dany Ghafari; the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization Institute for Statistics, including Olivier Labé, Alasdair McWilliam, Patrick Montjouides and Said Ould Ahmedou Voffal; and the United Nations University World Institute for Development Economics Research, including Rahul Lahoti. All United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) regional and central bureaus and country offices are also acknowledged with much gratitude.

Colleagues in UNDP provided advice and inputs and organized consultations. We are grateful to Jairo Acuna Alfaro, Tehmina Akhtar, Abdallah Al Dardari, Darah Aljoudar, Elsie Attafuah, Julie Axelsen, Niloy Banerjee, Fiona Bayat-Renoux, Julie Berg, Tessa Bertrand, Georgiana Braga’Orillard, Michele Candotti, Alessandra Casazza, Angelique M. Crumbly, Mirko Ebelshaeuser, Maja Edfast, Ahunna Eziakonwa, Alfonso Fernández, Almudena Fernández, Sara Ferrer, Arvinn Gadgil, Raymond Gilpin, Carolina Given Sjölander, George Gray Molina, Janil Greenaway, Niamh Hanafin, Wenwen He, Caroline Hopper-Box, Vanessa Howe-Jones, Ghida Ismail, Tomohiro Kawase, Julia Kercher, Adithya Kumar, Raquel Lagunas, Bas Leurs, Sarah Lister, Fatmata Lovetta Sesay, Zhaoxi Meng, Ulrika Modeér, Luca Monge Roggarello, Annet Mpabulungi Wakabi, Michelle Muschett, Marcos Athias Neto, Sjeila Ngatria, Shoko Noda, Mizuho Okimoto-Kaewtathip, Robert Opp, Anna Ortubia, Thangavel Palanivel, Prachi Paliwal, Stefano Pettinato, Ricardo Pineda, Sarah Poole, Corli Pretorius, Georgios Profiliotis, Soha Rasheed, Luca Renda, Carolina Rivera Vázquez, Sara Maaria Saastamoinen, Philip Schellekens, Bahdja Sehli, Narue Shiki, Ashvinder Singh Pramjit Singh, Ben Slay, Anca Stoica, Rania Tarazi, David Tat Ui Tan, Claire van der Vaeren, Federico Vaz, Francis Wasswa, Kanni Wignaraja, Bronwyn Williams, Clarise Wilson, Haoliang Xu, Shinobu Yamaguchi and Ivana Živković. We are also grateful to all the UNDP Signals Scanners and the UNDP Accelerator Labs that participated in consultations.

We were fortunate to have the support of operations consultants Judey Austin, Beatrice Chinapen and Milagros Feliciano and talented interns and fact checkers: Dopé Adjor, Natalia Aguilar Ruiz, Edwige Bayili, Parth Chawla, Seussler Daniel, Modi Michael Elisa, Morgane Hamza, Sijie Han, Yingyilong Hu, Jessica Karki, Alive Lassman, Danielle Mallon, Luiza Nakamura, Paricia Noguieira, Nazifa Rafa, Maria Nathalia Ramirez, Yu-Ya Rong, Laura Sanzarello, Zahraa Shabana, Ching To Chung, Diego Vallejo, Yuqing Wang, Xuan Yi and Moya Zhu.

The Human Development Report Office also extends its sincere gratitude to the Republic of Korea as well as the Governments of Japan and Portugal for their financial contributions. Their ongoing support is much appreciated and remains essential.

We are grateful for the highly professional work of our editors and layout artists at Communications Development Incorporated—led by Bruce Ross-Larson with Joe Caponio, Meta de Coquereaumont, Mike Crumplar, Christopher Trott and Elaine Wilson. Bruce, especially, is so much part of the process that he feels part of the team, as he has been for all the Human Development Reports over the decades.

We would like to warmly invoke the memory of Inge Kaul, an early leader of the Human Development Report Office and a pioneer on global public goods—to which this Report returns—and a fiercely independent thinker and mentor. Inge is very much missed.

It is hard to express how much we owe to UNDP Administrator Achim Steiner. In giving us the space and freedom to explore and take risks, to try new things—not only in Human Development Reports but beyond, including unprecedented innovations such as the Human Climate Horizons Platform (https://horizons.hdr.undp.org/)—he has always been generous in sharing his time (a precious commodity!) and wisdom with the team. Our office is named the Human Development Report Office, but, as he always reminds us, the goal is not to produce a report but to advance debates around human development and to invite decisionmakers to engage with the analysis. As always, we strive to meet this aspiration.