Media Home
UN Web TV
UN Audiovisual Library
UN PhotoUN / HUMAN DEVELOPMENT REPORT 2025
STORY: UN / HUMAN DEVELOPMENT REPORT 2025
TRT: 01:11
SOURCE: UNIFEED
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGES: ENGLISH / NATS
DATELINE: 06 MAY 2025, NEW YORK CITY / FILE
RECENT - NEW YORK CITY
1. Wide shot, exterior United Nations Headquarters
06 MAY 2025, NEW YORK CITY
2. Wide shot, spokesperson Farhan Haq at the podium
3. SOUNDBITE (English) Farhan Haq, Deputy Spokesperson for the Secretary-General, United Nations:
“Human development progress is experiencing an unprecedented slowdown, according to a new report released today by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). The 2025 Human Development Report says that, instead of a sustained recovery following the period of exceptional crises of 2020-2021, progress has been unexpectedly weak. Excluding those crisis years, the meagre rise in global human development projected in this year’s report is the smallest increase since 1990. Projections for 2024 reveal stalled progress on the Human Development Index in all regions across the world. The report – titled, "A matter of choice: people and possibilities in the age of Artificial Intelligence (AI)" - shows how Artificial Intelligence (AI) could reignite development. In a new survey, half of respondents worldwide think that their jobs could be automated. An even larger share—six in ten— expect AI to impact their employment positively, creating opportunities in jobs that may not even exist today.”
4. Wide shot, Haq walks away
“Human development progress is experiencing an unprecedented slowdown,” according to the 2025 edition of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)’s flagship publication, the Human Development Report (HDR), released today (6 May).
The Deputy Spokesperson for the Secretary-General, Farhan Haq, told reporters in New York that “instead of a sustained recovery following the period of exceptional crises of 2020-2021, progress has been unexpectedly weak.”
Haq said, “excluding those crisis years, the meagre rise in global human development projected in this year’s report is the smallest increase since 1990,” while “projections for 2024 reveal stalled progress on the Human Development Index in all regions across the world.”
The report – titled A Matter of Choice: People and Possibilities in the Age of Artificial Intelligence (AI), Haq said, “shows how Artificial Intelligence (AI) could reignite development. In a new survey, half of respondents worldwide think that their jobs could be automated.”
An even larger share—six in ten— he said, “expect AI to impact their employment positively, creating opportunities in jobs that may not even exist today.”
The HDR is an independent report, commissioned by UNDP and is the product of a selected team of leading scholars, development practitioners and members of the HDR Office of UNDP.
