The rise of the South is radically reshaping the world of the 21st century, with developing nations driving economic growth, lifting hundreds of millions of people from poverty, and propelling billions more into a new global middle class, says the United Nations Development Programme’s (UNDP)2013 Human Development Report.
“The rise of the South is unprecedented in its speed and scale,” the 2013 Report says. “Never in history have the living conditions and prospects of so many people changed so dramatically and so fast.”
This phenomenon goes well beyond the socalled BRICs, middle income countries often represented by Brazil, Russia, India and China, the 2013 Report stresses. The Report shows that more than 40 developing countries have made greater human development gains in recent decades than would have been predicted. These achievements, it says, are largely attributable to sustained investment in education, health care and social programmes, and open engagement with an increasingly interconnected world.
In a high-level forum at the UN Conference on Sustainable Development today the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) presented the conceptual groundwork for a future “Sustainable Human Development Index,” which would recognize the cost of human development to future generations.
Delegates to the first Global Human Development Forum unanimously adopted an Istanbul Declaration calling on the world community to take bold action against global social inequities and environmental deterioration at the UN Conference on Sustainable Development in Rio this June.
"It is time to reset the global development agenda", the Istanbul Declaration states. "The world needs a renewed commitment to sustainable development and strong political leadership to implement it."
See all Global Human Development Forum materials
This year’s Report focuses on the challenge of sustainable and equitable progress. A joint lens shows how environmental degradation intensifies inequality through adverse impacts on already disadvantaged people and how inequalities in human development amplify environmental degradation.
See all 2011 Report materials, including global and regional press releases.
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