Samoa has been listed among the countries in the world by the United Nations where the quality of life has gone down instead of improving.

The nation is listed alongside Afghanistan and Timor-Leste where there is a worrying regression.

Uneven development progress is leaving the poorest behind, exacerbating inequality, and stoking political polarization on a global scale.

The result is a dangerous gridlock, according to a new report released by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

The 2023/24 Human Development Report (HDR), titled “Breaking the Gridlock: Reimagining cooperation in a polarized world", reveals a troubling trend: the rebound in the global Human Development Index (HDI) – a summary measure reflecting a country’s Gross National Income (GNI) per capita, education, and life expectancy – has been partial, incomplete, and unequal.

The HDI was projected to reach record highs in 2023 after steep declines during 2020 and 2021. But this progress is deeply uneven. Rich countries were experiencing record-high levels of human development while half of the world’s poorest countries remained below their pre-crisis level of progress.

Following an unprecedented dip due to the COVID-19 pandemic and economic turmoil, the HDI in Asia and the Pacific rebounded to pre-pandemic values in 2022, but this should not be interpreted as a complete recovery.

The latest HDI value remains well below what it could have been if there had not been a crisis. Fourteen countries are still below the 2019 level and some countries like Afghanistan, Timor-Leste, and Samoa are seeing a worrying regression in HDI.

East Asia managed to minimize the disruptions of the pandemic particularly well, and the HDI data reveals that this subregion barely registered a blip. Other subregions saw marked volatility. In 2022, South Asia bounced back significantly, surpassing pre-pandemic levels. South-East Asia remains below the HDI level before the pandemic.

While the Pacific rebounded above 2019 values, health and education remain critical concerns. Viewed over a longer period, Asia-Pacific continues to stand out as the region with the most rapid progress in human development.

Between 1990 and 2022, the HDI increased by 20 percentage points – the highest increase in the world. However, inequality within countries continued to be a worrying trend. South Asia’s loss in the HDI due to inequality is among the highest in the world (after sub-Saharan Africa), followed by the Pacific.

Globally inequalities are compounded by substantial economic concentration. As referenced in the report, almost 40 per cent of global trade in goods is concentrated in three or fewer countries; and in 2021 the market capitalisation of each of the three largest tech companies in the world surpassed the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of more than 90 per cent of countries that year.

“The widening human development gap revealed by the report shows that the two-decade trend of steadily reducing inequalities between wealthy and poor nations is now in reverse. Despite our deeply interconnected global societies, we are falling short. We must leverage our interdependence as well as our capacities to address our shared and existential challenges and ensure people’s aspirations are met,” said Achim Steiner, head of the UN Development Programme.

“This gridlock carries a significant human toll. The failure of collective action to advance action on climate change, digitalization or poverty and inequality not only hinders human development but also worsens polarization and further erodes trust in people and institutions worldwide.”