UNITED NATIONS — Global human development – which can be measured as a combination of the world's education, health and living standards — could decline this year for the first time since the concept was introduced in 1990, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has warned.
With school closures, UNDP estimates of the “effective out-of-school rate”— the percentage of primary school-aged children, adjusted to reflect those without Internet access — indicate that 60 per cent of children are not getting an education, leading to global levels not seen since the 1980s.
According to a UNDP report released Wednesday, the drop in human development is expected to be much higher in developing countries that are less able to cope with the pandemic's social and economic fallout than richer nations.
In education, with schools closed and stark divides in access to online learning, UNDP estimates show that 86 per cent of children in primary education are now effectively out of school in countries with low human development, compared with just 20 per cent in countries with very high human development.
This is particularly important for the 'new necessities' of the 21st century, such as access to the Internet, which is helping us to benefit from tele-education, telemedicine, and to work from home,” says Pedro Conceição, director of the Human Development Report Office at UNDP.
