The great development challenge of the 21st century is to safeguard the right of generations today and in the future to live healthy and fulfilling lives. The 2011 Human Development Report offers important new contributions to the global dialogue on this challenge, showing how sustainability is inextricably linked to equity—to questions of fairness and social justice and of greater access to a better quality of life. Forecasts suggest that continuing failure to reduce the grave environmental risks and deepening inequalities threatens to slow decades of sustained progress by the world’s poor majority—and even to reverse the global convergence in human development, according to projections in the 2011 Human Development Report.

Sustainability and Equity: A Better Future for All argues that environmental sustainability can be most fairly and effectively achieved by addressing health, education, income, and gender disparities together with the need for global action on energy production and ecosystem protection.

The human development data utilized in the preparation of the Human Development Index (HDI) and other composite indices featured in the Human Development Report are provided by a variety of public international sources and represent the best and most current statistics available for those indicators at the time of the preparation of this annual report.