> From: Andy Farkas<mailto:[email protected]>
> Sent: Thursday, 8 September 2022 9:01 AM
> Subject: Re: [LINK] Nano-material Covid vaccine
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>> ... mind-numbing terror..
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> Indeed. -andyf
UN report says human development was set back 5 years by COVID-19 and other
crises
Some countries saw a drop in life expectancy of two years or more.
Posted 5h ago
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-09-08/human-development-set-back-5-years-covid-crises-un-report/101420968
A new report from the United Nations argues that an unprecedented array of
crises have set human progress back five years and fuelled a global wave of
uncertainty.
Key points:
* A key index including life expectancy, education and standards of living
has declined for the first time since 1992
* The United Nations says this is why so many "feel desperate, frustrated,
worried about the future"
* The pandemic is a major driver of the reversion, but political, financial
and climate-related crises are also to blame
The UN Development Program (UNDP) announced on Thursday that for the first time
since it was created over 30 years ago, the Human Development Index — a measure
of countries' life expectancies, education levels and standards of living —
declined for two years straight, in 2020 and 2021.
"It means we die earlier, we are less well educated, our incomes are going
down," UNDP chief Achim Steiner told AFP in an interview.
"Just under three parameters, you can get a sense of why so many people are
beginning to feel desperate, frustrated, worried about the future," he said.
The Human Development Index has steadily risen for decades, but began sliding
in 2020 and continued its fall in 2021, erasing the gains of the preceding five
years, the paper says.
Titled Uncertain Times, Unsettled Lives, the report points to the COVID-19
pandemic as a major driver of the global reversion, but also says that a
compounding number of crises — political, financial and climate-related — have
not allowed time for populations to recover.
"We've had disasters before. We've had conflicts before. But the confluence of
what we're facing right now is a major setback to human development," said Mr
Steiner.
The setback is truly global, impacting more than 90 per cent of countries
around the world, according to the study.
Switzerland, Norway and Iceland all retain their spots at the top of the list,
while South Sudan, Chad and Niger sit at the bottom.
And while some countries had begun to recover from the pandemic, many others in
Latin America, sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia and the Caribbean had not yet
turned the corner before a new crisis hit: the war in Ukraine.
'People have lost trust in one another'
While the fallout from Russia's invasion of Ukraine on food and energy security
has not yet been calculated into this year's index, "without any doubt, the
outlook for 2022 is grim," Mr Steiner said.
Aussies 'living longer but suffering more chronic illnesses'
With a population living longer, Australia is experiencing higher rates of
chronic and aging-related conditions like dementia, the latest snapshot from
the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare says.
A large contributor to the Human Development Index's recent decline is a global
drop in life expectancy, down from 73 years in 2019 to 71.4 years in 2021.
The report's lead author, Pedro Conceição, described the decrease as an
"unprecedented shock," noting that some countries — the United States included
— had drops of two years or more.
The report also describes how transformational forces, such as climate change,
globalisation and political polarisation, present humanity with a complex level
of uncertainty "never seen in human history," leading to rising feelings of
insecurity.
"People have lost trust in one another," said Mr Steiner.
"Never mind in institutions, our neighbour now becomes sometimes the greatest
threat, whether literally speaking in the community, or globally by nations,
that is paralysing us.
"We can't continue with the playbook of the last century," he argued,
preferring a focus on economic transformation rather than a reliance on growth
as a panacea.
"Frankly speaking, the transformations we now need require us to introduce the
metrics of the future: low carbon, less inequality, greater sustainability."
The report strikes a positive note as well, saying that improvements could be
made by focusing on three main areas: investments in renewable energy and
preparation for future pandemics, insurance to absorb shocks, and innovations
to strengthen the capacity to cope with future crises.
Mr Steiner also called for a reversal in the recent downward trend of
development assistance to the most vulnerable countries.
Continuing down that road would be a grave error, said Mr Steiner, and
"underestimates the impact it has on our ability to work together as nations."
AFP
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