United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan and the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) Ogata Sadako Research Institute for Peace and Development are jointly organising a public event to explore responses to complex crises on 26 April 2023. 

We are living in uncertain times. The COVID-19 pandemic, now in its third year, continues to spin off new variants. The war in Ukraine is reverberating throughout the world, causing immense human suffering, including a cost-of-living crisis, while climate and ecological disasters threaten the world daily. 

So where do we go from here for a more hopeful future? How do we find new paths? And what is standing in the way of us moving there? The 2021/22 Human Development Report (HDR), “Uncertain Times, Unsettled Lives: Shaping our Future in a Transforming World,” seeks to address these questions.

The 2021/22 HDR is the third and final installment in a trilogy of reports including the 2019 report on inequalities and the 2020 report on the risks of the Anthropocene. The latest report examines how inequalities and uncertainty are reinforcing one another to drive polarization and undermine our sense of control over our lives – also building on the results of the 2022 Special Report on Human Security, which found that six out of seven people globally reported feeling insecure, even before the COVID-19 pandemic hit. 

But crucially, this report is also about opportunity. It argues that in the end, working towards shared goals and doubling down on human development are critical to creating a future in which we can all thrive, however uncertain. 

The Japan HDR launch event, which will also mark the publication of the Japanese edition of the “2022 Special Report on Human Security,” will be an in-person event, with simultaneous Japanese-English interpretation.