In his address, Klaus Beck, UNFPA Deputy Regional Director for Eastern Europe and Central Asia, emphasized that the right to development must place the individual—along with their dignity, rights, choices, and capacity to shape their own future—at the center.
He highlighted demographic shifts, migration and urbanization, climate change, digital transformation, artificial intelligence, armed conflicts, and humanitarian crises as factors that both create new opportunities and give rise to new risks of inequality and vulnerability.
A key focus of the address was the concept of demographic resilience—the ability of states to respond proactively to demographic changes while upholding human rights and expanding opportunities for diverse population groups. In this context, he underscored the need to invest in youth education, health, skills, and decent employment; to adapt social protection systems to an aging population; and to ensure gender equality and conditions that allow for balancing family and professional life.
Klaus Beck also stressed the importance of international solidarity and practical cooperation in addressing contemporary challenges—through the development of data systems and evidence-based policies, expanded access to knowledge and innovation, sustainable financing, and collaboration among states, international organizations, civil society, and the private sector.
"Human dignity must not be a byproduct of development; it must remain its goal and its benchmark."
Press Service of the National Center of the
Republic of Uzbekistan for Human Rights