PRESS RELEASE
UNITED NATIONS DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM
Yerevan, P. Adamyan 14
Contact: Sona Hamalian
Tel: (37410) 566073, Fax: (37410) 543811
Website: ,
email: sona.hamalian@undp.org

LATEST UNDP HUMAN DEVELOPMENT REPORT PRESENTED IN ARMENIA

Yerevan, November 28, 2007 – Today Ms. Consuelo Vidal, UN Resident
Coordinator and UNDP Resident Representative, Mr. Simon Papyan, First
Deputy Minister of Nature Protection, and Mr. Nerses Yeritsyan, Minister
of Trade and Economic Development, presented the UNDP’s Human
Development Report 2007/2008 to the Armenian public, during a press
conference held at the UN House.

Published annually since 1990, the Human Development Report (HDR)
provides a thorough and objective analysis of the current state of human
development and draws worldwide attention to issues vital for humanity,
concentrating on a specific theme of global significance. The latest
report, subtitled `Fighting Climate Change: Human solidarity in a
divided world,’ focuses, particularly, on global warming, its
devastating consequences, and the urgency of taking action to help
curtail them.

`The well-being and future development of humanity hinge on the highest
level of awareness regarding the issues facing our world and, as
importantly, the will to address them in a truly collaborative manner,’
Ms. Vidal commented. `The UNDP Human Development Report has fast become
the global standard in the study and mitigation of core problems
affecting our planet.’

The findings of the HDR are factored into the Human Development Index
(HDI), which is designed to assess the relative human-development level
of every country in three basic dimensions: a long and healthy life,
access to knowledge, and a decent standard of living. For 2007/2008,
Armenia’s HDI value stands at 0.775, ranking it at 83 out of 177
countries. These figures represent a gain of .007 points but a
three-level drop in ranking compared with 2006. However, if today’s
revised HDI criteria were to be applied to the 2006 rankings, Armenia
that year would have stood at 90 and thus advanced by seven levels this
year, not dropped by three. In terms of HDI ranking for 2007/2008, the
closest to Armenia from Central and Eastern Europe and the CIS countries
are Ukraine, Georgia, and Azerbaijan, ranked 76th, 96th, and 98th,
respectively. Armenia’s other neighbours, the Islamic Republic of Iran
and Turkey, are ranked 94th and 84th, respectively.

The latest HDR shows that climate change is no longer a matter of
speculation. It goes on to state that exposure to droughts, floods, and
storms is already destroying opportunity and reinforcing inequality.
‘There is now overwhelming scientific evidence that the world is moving
towards the point at which irreversible ecological catastrophe would be
unavoidable,’ it says.

As in previous years, the 2007/2008 HDR stresses that climate change is
not purely an environmental issue but rather a complex phenomenon which
poses a great challenge to the development of humanity and realization
of the UN Millennium Development Goals.

The report indicates that the poorest countries and populations will
suffer the earlier and most damaging setback, even though they have
contributed the least to the problem. Some 262 million people, over 98%
of them in the developing world, were affected by climate-related
disasters annually from 2000 to 2004. Further temperature increases of
3-4° C could result in 330 million people being permanently or
temporarily displaced as a result of floods, and 20-30% of land species
could face extinction. An additional 220-400 million people could be
exposed to malaria – a disease that already claims around 1 million
lives annually. These eventualities represent only a tiny fragment of
the consequences of climate change.

According to the report, in order to effectively fight climate change
and the threats it poses to humanity, mitigation and adaptation must go
hand in hand.
According to the First National Report to the United Nations Framework
Convention on Climate Change, in Armenia the scenario of a 2° C increase
in temperature over the 21 century would have the following consequences:

– Decrease of total annual flow of water by 15-20%;
– Reduction of precipitation by 10%;
– Expansion of desert and semi-desert areas by 33%;
– Reduction of livestock by 30% and dairy production by 28-33%;
– Reduction of crops by 8-14%.

Though the overall economic cost of such scenarios in Armenia has not
yet been calculated, the global picture is clear. The HDR report
indicates that if no action is taken now for a drastic reduction of
greenhouse-gas emissions, the overall cost of adaptation measures may
total around US $86 billion annually by 2015, representing close to 0.2%
of the GDP of developed countries. As significant as these figures may
seem, they pale in comparison to the human and financial costs of the
expected damages in health, livelihoods, ecosystems, property, and
infrastructure if no immediate measures are taken.

`Climate change is exactly the kind of global challenge that the United
Nations is best suited to address,’ Ms. Vidal said. `This is why we have
initiated a study of the actual economic costs of climate change, which
will become a baseline document to help the government of Armenia
institute appropriate adaptation strategies, integrate them into
sectoral policies, and take relevant measures to curb the impact of
climate change in the country.’