By Zakaria Zoundi, UNDP Human Development Report Office  

In the Pact of the Future, adopted at the Summit of the Future in September 2024, countries committed to “[d]evelop a framework on measures of progress on sustainable development to complement and go beyond gross domestic product” (Action 53). The establishment of the High-Level Expert Group on Beyond GDP and the recent launch of the Beyond GDP Global Alliance as a part of the Seville Platform for Action are examples of steps that could help foster policy interest and build consensus around country-owned and universally applicable measures.

The human development index (HDI) contributes to this transition as one of the pioneering metrics that complement GDP, as highlighted by the UN Secretary General. HDI measures countries’ overall achievement in three key elements of human development: health; education; and income. While GDP focuses on monetary values of goods and services produced, HDI considers a broader range of factors related to human development.

According to the 2025 Human Development Report (HDR), human development is facing unexpectedly slow progress in all regions across the world, after decades of sustained growth. Despite a projected record high in 2024, the increase in HDI is the weakest since 1990, the first year it was recorded. The democratization of artificial intelligence (AI) is already underway, with 20% of people worldwide using it, according to a UNDP global survey conducted for this report. Around two-thirds of respondents – across low-, medium-, and high-HDI countries – expect to use AI in education, health, and work – three core areas of human development – within the next year. Countries’ development depends less on what AI can do and more on how people choose to use it to transform their economies and societies. Advancing AI-augmented human development depends on targeted action in three key areas:

• Building an economy where people collaborate with AI rather than compete against it;
• Embedding human agency across the full AI lifecycle, from design to deployment; and
• Modernizing education and health systems to meet 21st century demands.

With the right investments and governance, AI has the potential to drive human development in ways that exceed current expectations and support a vision of prosperity that goes beyond simple GDP growth.

Statistics as the anchor of the next steps

Statistics is the backbone of this transition alongside political commitment. It represents the operationalization of political will and the commitments made by the international community to date. For the new metric to replicate – or even surpass – the success of GDP, data and methodology consensus as well as statistical capacity will be key in the next steps.

Statistical approach to integrating the concept of well-being: Well-being can be measured through subjective perceptions or objective policy outcomes, but neither approach alone offers a complete picture. While combining both in a new framework may help, the deeper challenge lies in agreeing on what these measures should include. Integrating composite indices like the HDI and its related measures into the Beyond GDP dashboard remains a core task for the UN Expert Group on Well-being Measurement. The appeal of composite indices lies in their clarity, ease of communication, and widespread use in policy. However, challenges remain, including potential loss of detail, risks of misinterpretation, methodological sensitivity, and data quality concerns. To address these, recommended next steps include establishing a sound theoretical framework, ensuring methodological transparency, conducting robustness and sensitivity analyses, engaging stakeholders, and presenting results in a clear and accessible manner.

Data consensus: The UN statistical commission suggests the new framework should communicate three dimensions – well-being, sustainability, and inclusion, and capture three policy spheres – environmental, economic, and social. Despite broad agreement on the direction of the new metric, significant challenges remain in selecting representative data across well-being dimensions, policy areas, income levels, geographic regions, and diverse population groups, all within the ten to 20 indicator limit set by the Secretary-General. Achieving this objective will require significant flexibility from stakeholders. Trying to over-accommodate diverse perspectives risks creating an overly complex, data-heavy framework that may overwhelm users and marginalize low-income countries (LICs) given their current statistical challenges. Achieving simplicity and clarity is an essential step in this transition. While the HDI and its related indices (IHDI, PHDI, GDI, GII, and MPI) address many of these caveats, data gaps remain – especially in gender-related areas. To improve global applicability, consensus should ensure that the selected indicators are both meaningful and widely computable.

Strengthening capacity and harnessing AI: Because the new metric will be country-owned and embedded within national statistical systems, governments must invest in statistical capacity to ensure timely, high-quality, and consistent data across all relevant domains. For LICs and middle-income countries (MICs), this means prioritizing improvements in survey design, data infrastructure, and staff training, while also exploring innovative data collection approaches such as mobile surveys, satellite imagery, and citizen-generated data. The growing role of AI makes these investments even more urgent. As highlighted in the 2025 HDR, AI is transforming governance, economies, and individual well-being – and is also reshaping the data landscape. AI can support the new metric by improving data processing, forecasting trends, and generating real-time, disaggregated insights. To fully leverage these opportunities, countries should begin strengthening AI and data science capabilities within national statistical systems and establish robust frameworks for AI governance.

Path to operationalization

Efforts to move beyond GDP are gaining significant momentum, presenting a crucial opportunity to take concrete actions – beyond statements of intent or symbolic commitments. This moment calls for meaningful steps that will enable countries to measure what truly matters for prosperity. The HDI has already shown how a simple and policy-relevant measure can shape thinking and practice around the world. Brazil, for instance, adapted the HDI to the municipal level (IDH-M), helping local governments better target social policies. Brunei Darussalam committed to measure its quality of life with reference to the HDI, aiming to rank among the world’s top ten nations by 2035. Yet sustaining and amplifying these gains requires more than technical solutions. It calls for strong and enduring political will. The ongoing geopolitical and economic tensions are reshaping national priorities, risking a loss of momentum and threatening to erode the hard-won progress in moving beyond GDP.

To move towards full operationalization, the next steps must focus on safeguarding political commitment while advancing the tools and frameworks that make measuring human development both practical and impactful. In particular, next step should pay attention to the following:

• A steadfast commitment, resilient in the face of global tensions and uncertainties, to enabling a smooth and effective transition towards the new metric.
• Establishing consensus on concepts, theory, methods, and data to lay the foundation for global acceptance – one that can, at the very least, match GDP in both usability and influence. Methodological rigor and practical constraints should be carefully balanced to ensure both statistical soundness and policy relevance.
• Investing in statistical capacity and harnessing the transformative potential of AI. The 2025 HDR demonstrates how AI, if guided by the right policy choices, can accelerate human development at scale.

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The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official stance of the UNDP.

This guest article is part of a series that seeks to raise awareness of efforts to advance metrics that go beyond GDP. By highlighting topics of theoretical and conceptual significance, including suggestions and applications of specific indicators and indices to complement GDP, the series aims to inform and support sustainable development decision makers in their efforts to go beyond GDP. This project was made possible through financial support provided by the International Development Research Centre (IDRC).