Maldives’ choice for next frontier of human development

This year’s UNDP Human Development Report (HDR) celebrates thirty years since its birth in 1990. In the middle of the disruption and confusion of the COVID pandemic, when everyone is wondering what the ‘new normal’ might be, what better year could we have for celebrating our 30th anniversary HDR?

At its heart, human development is about expanding human choices. Recent decades have seen an explosion in the choices made available to people everywhere as a result of the tremendous economic growth and extension in life expectancy that have been achieved. Much of what we choose, however, involves an enormous consumption of energy and materials, typically with huge reliance on fossil fuels and unrecycled materials and chemicals. As a result, we are now likely to limit future human choices: polluted air and water negatively affecting health; global warming leading to extreme weathers and rising sea levels; water acidification and land degradation causing loss of biodiversity and of natural resources, such as our coral reefs, fish and beautiful beaches.