Development at Risk: Protecting Gains and Unleashing Opportunities Amid Crisis

19 June 2025: UNDP’s new flagship report, 'Development at Risk: Protecting Gains and Unleashing Opportunities Amid Crisis' is anchored in a simple but urgent proposition: complex, interconnected risks are now a defining feature of our era, and development pathways that fail to account for these risks are unlikely to succeed. While the pace and pattern of development progress have diverged significantly across contexts, no country is immune to the disruptive impacts of these transitions. In fact, the engines of progress – rapid urbanization, technological innovation, economic globalization – have become, in many cases, sources of risk themselves.

We need to chart a new course.

This starts with recognizing the threat we face from growing risk and uncertainty. It’s systemic, it’s gaining in strength, and it could become unstoppable without urgent action.  

Countries and the global community need to treat risk reduction as an important policy goal. They need to build in and invest in risk management across almost everything that they do. But they also need to see how risks could be harnessed to transform how we advance development.

UNDP’s new global report argues that this is possible with three concrete actions, or levers for change:

1. Rethink development outcomes: Move beyond GDP as a marker of progress to include prosperity, wellbeing and resilience.
2. Reimagine governance: Empower local institutions, harness data for early warning, and plan for uncertainty.
3. Reboot cooperation: Break out of short-term cycles by investing in long-term solutions with flexible finance, shared responsibility, and room for experimentation.

The report concludes that the greatest risk we face is not in taking bold action, but in failing to act when the stakes are highest.

Here are some powerful ways communities around the world are responding to cascading crises – each offering vital lessons on how to make development work better in uncertain times.

Women leading recovery in Afghanistan

Afghanistan faces a deep crisis: nearly three-quarters of the population cannot meet basic needs, the economy is shrinking, and women are excluded from education and work. Girls remain banned from secondary and higher education, leaving 3 million out of school. Female employment has collapsed from 19% in 2021 to just 6% in 2023, costing the economy an estimated US$1 billion.

Yet women are driving recovery at the community level. With UNDP support, more than 8 million women have gained access to clean energy, basic services, livelihood training, and small business support. True recovery depends on restoring women’s rights and unlocking their economic potential—measured not only in GDP, but in dignity, opportunity, and inclusion.

Facing climate change in Bosnia and Herzegovina

Rising floods and temperatures are reshaping life in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Homes and jobs have been lost, but municipalities are responding with anticipatory, inclusive governance. With EU and UNDP support, 45 municipalities have built flood-resistant housing, recognized women’s land rights, and included women in decision-making.

A new initiative launched in 2024 expands this model, focusing on local governments, community participation, and inclusive planning. By linking governance with climate and migration challenges, Bosnia and Herzegovina shows how locally led, inclusive leadership can reduce risk and build resilience.

Charting a new course

Traditional models of international collaboration are struggling under the weight of geopolitical tensions and domestic pressures, even as global challenges intensify. What’s needed is a shift toward more flexible, inclusive, and outcome-focused partnerships—coalitions of the willing that can act quickly where space and opportunity exist.

The examples from Afghanistan and Bosnia and Herzegovina show what’s possible when people and partnerships come together to rethink what development can be.

At its core, Development at Risk is a call for political courage and practical action. The nature of risk is fundamentally changed, so our old playbook no longer works.

We must move from patchwork solutions to long-term integrated strategies that recognize risks intersect, which changes how they impact people and the planet. To measure success not only by growth, but by fairness, resilience and human dignity.

The future will be shaped by the choices we make now. If we act boldly, invest in people and systems, and listen to those most affected, we can learn to live with risk, protect hard-won gains and build something better, even in the hardest places.

Download the Development at Risk report for more details.