LocationsHuman Development Report 2025
Can Emerging Technologies Accelerate Human Development?
May 6, 2025
UNDP Human Development Report 2025
UNDP
The Human Development Report (HDR) is UNDP’s annual flagship publication, measuring human development through a robust quantitative framework, with the Human Development Index (HDI) at its core. As one of the longest-standing and most comprehensive tools for data gathering, analysis, and policy assessment in the field of human development, the HDR has for over three decades provided insights not only into how well countries are doing, but more importantly into how well people around the world are living.
The 2025 edition of the HDR forms part of a trilogy of reports exploring a world increasingly shaped by complex uncertainties: greater polarization, environmental challenges, and profound social transformations driven by digitalization and artificial intelligence. This year’s report focuses on many issues among which one stands out to me and that is: How can we make emerging technologies work for people?
Taking a people centered approach, the report raises critical questions about how we can navigate this new era to strengthen human agency and advance human development in the decades ahead.
Can We Make Emerging Technology Work for People?
The UNDP Country Office in North Macedonia has been actively working on integrating innovation and emerging technologies into development policies, across multiple projects and core programs. Collaborating with national institutions, donors, and societal partners, we aim to enhance development opportunities by bringing technology closer to people’s daily lives.
One example of this approach is the support provided for the opening of a youth center in Gostivar, designed to bring digital technology services closer to young people in the region. This center offers a wide range of innovative opportunities, allowing different categories of youth to build critical skills for the digital economy. In a similar effort to bridge the gap between local skills and global technological advancements, UNDP supported the establishment of a Future Skills Center in the Polog region. The Center works to align local stakeholders with emerging demands on the global market, offering capacity building, research, advocacy, and training across different sectors of society. In the city of Skopje, UNDP contributed to the launch of a biotechnology laboratory a space where young people interested in sustainability can experiment with transforming waste into eco-friendly products. By fostering innovation at the community level, these initiatives illustrate how technology can become a tool for empowerment and environmental stewardship.
Bio-Lab, Skopje, North Macedonia
UNDP North Macedonia
Beyond community focused initiatives, the UNDP office in its 30 years of presence in the country working together with public institutions and a variety of societal stakeholders has supported the digitalization of public municipal e-services, development of mobile applications that allow citizens to ‘report a problem’ directly to municipal authorities, thereby strengthening civic engagement and service delivery. It has also supported the creation of digital tools to facilitate citizen participation in policymaking processes and developed an e-learning platform to enhance the skills of municipal staff (with more than 90% of municipal councilors having access to the platform), helping to modernize local governance structures. Finally, we supported the development of an e-dashboard with financial indicators of municipalities in North Macedonia, providing an intuitive and transparent platform for citizens to access detailed information about their municipality's financial performance. These initiatives demonstrate how technology can enhance transparency, accountability, and responsiveness in public administration.
At the strategic level, UNDP has supported public institutions in the development of a modern, innovative, and forward looking National Development Strategy an important step in preparing communities and institutions to be resilient, adaptive, and empowered in an increasingly uncertain world. By embedding technological foresight into national policy frameworks, we aim to future-proof societies and empower citizens to thrive amid rapid global change.
We believe that emerging technologies offer enormous potential to advance development, but they also carry risks that could harm communities if left unchecked. That is why it is essential to invest in inclusive, forward-looking policymaking and to build strong partnerships across sectors. Together, we can ensure that technology serves people, not the other way around.
If you are interested to learn more about the interplay between AI, digitalization and development, here you can access the latest Human Development Report, and take part in the upcoming conversation on this topic. You can also follow the work UNDP in North Macedonia is doing and planning to do in 2025 in this space on our website.