World Geography
Name: __________________
Canada back in top 10 countries on UN Human Development Index
By staff Global News
A year after slipping out of the top 10, Canada is back in the annual United Nation’s human
development index (HDI). The 2014 report, which reviews a country’s performance in health,
education and income, places Canada in eighth place versus 11th last year. In the 1990s, Canada
held down first place for most of the decade. However, when adjusted for elements such as
income inequality, inequality in education and inequality in adjusted life expectancy index,
Canada falls to 10th.
Canada’s rank falls to 23rd on the gender inequality index. It takes into account elements such
as maternal mortality ratio, adolescent birth rate, share of seats in parliament and labour force
participation rate. Slovenia, ranked 25th overall, takes top spot on that index.
The report, entitled Sustaining Human Progress: Reducing Vulnerabilities and Building
Resilience, concludes that 2.2 billion people around the world are poor or near-poor. More than
half of those people live on the equivalent of $1.25 a day. The report warns that unless
government tackles the vulnerabilities of their populations, progress will be “neither equitable
nor sustainable.”
Among the report’s recommendations are:
•Putting full employment back atop the global policy agenda
•Providing comprehensive basic social security benefits such as unemployment insurance and
pensions
•Collective effort, coordinated action to deal with threats ranging from financial crises to
climate change to conflicts
HDI
rank
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
High Development
Norway
Australia
Switzerland
Netherlands
United States
Germany
New Zealand
Canada
Singapore
Denmark
Ireland
Sweden
Iceland
United Kingdom
Hong Kong & South Korea (tie)
HDI
Rank
173.
174.
175.
176.
177.
178.
179.
180.
181.
182.
183.
184.
185.
186.
187.
Low Development
Ethiopia
Malawi
Liberia
Mali
Guinea-Bissau
Mozambique
Guinea
Burundi
Burkina Faso
Eritrea
Sierra Leone
Chad
Central African Republic
Democratic Republic of Congo
Niger
World Geography
Name: _____________________________
Pakistan ranks 146 on UN’s Human Development Index
UNITED NATIONS: Pakistan is ranked at 146 – the same spot as in the previous year – among the 187
countries in UN’s 2013 Human Development Index (HDI)’s annual rankings that is worked out by
combining indicators of life expectancy, educational attainment and income.
The HDI forms part of the Human Development Report (HDR) 2014, a flagship study produced
annually by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). It was released in Tokyo on
Thursday.
The report, entitled: “Sustaining Human Progress: Reducing vulnerabilities and Building Resilience” is
23rd in a series which began in 1990. The first UNDP Human Development Report (HDR) was
prepared and launched under the leadership of the late Dr. Mahbubul Haq, a former Pakistan finance
minister.
The HDR especially notes that over 200 million people are affected by natural disasters and 45 million,
the largest number in 18 years, were displaced by conflicts at the end of 2012. These factors
contributed to denting the improvement in human development.
In other South Asian countries, India ranked 135, one step up from last year, Bangladesh rose four steps
to 142, while Sri Lanka ranked 73, a big rise from last year’s 92, Maldives: 103, up one step, while
Nepal rose to 145 from 157. Bhutan finished 140, up four steps.
Oil-rich Norway was the country with the best quality of life and is ranked number 1 on the 2013 HDI,
as it did last year. Australia and Switzerland followed at the top of the standings.
Burkina Faso, Eritrea, Chad and Mozambique are at the bottom of the annual ranking.
Netherlands, United States, Germany, New Zealand, Canada, Singapore and Denmark are placed
among the top 10 countries in the 2013 HDI.
With nearly a third of humanity poor or vulnerable to poverty, governments need to put a higher
priority on creating jobs and providing basic social services, the United Nations Development Program
said in the report. It warned that improvements in longevity, education and income, which are the
three main components of the UNDP’s influential index of human development, are slowing due to
worsening inequality and economic disruptions, to droughts and other natural disasters and to poor
government policies. But the agency also said the solutions are not complicated.
“As this report says, it’s not rocket science,” UNDP head Helen Clark said before the report’s release.
“Where people do address these things, development can come along very, very nicely. Where they
haven’t addressed a lot of vulnerabilities and development deficits, as in Syria, it all comes
spectacularly unstuck.”
“Eradicating poverty is not just about “getting to zero,” Clark said, “but about staying there.”
Most people in most countries are doing better than ever before thanks to advances in education,
technology and incomes, the report said. But it notes a “widespread sense of precariousness in the
world today in livelihoods, the environment, personal security and politics.”
Human Development Index - a weapon of the weak?
If you are interested in 'development' you would probably know about the Human Development Index. Although the statistical
calculation involved in arriving at the score for each country according to the Human Development Index is a matter for statisticians,
most of us know that every year the UN brings out a report called the Human Development Report which apart from discussion on
various issues also brings out ranking of countries according to Human Development Index. The countries are divided into four groups (a) very high human development; (b) high human development; (c) medium human development, and (d) low human development.
This index was first initiated in 1990.
If we go back to the history of the concept of human development and the human development index we shall see that the two leading
thinkers behind it were Mahbub-ul-Haq of Pakistan and Amartya Sen from India. The idea behind developing such an index was a
noble one - Development Economics was till then busy with only calculating the development of an economy in terms of GNP growth.
The proponents of HDI wanted "to shift the focus of development economics from national income accounting to people-centered
policies". Thus a country was no more to be evaluated in terms of its GNP only but also in terms of its achievements in terms of
education, health etc, i.e. in terms of the what the government did to ensure the quality of life for its citizens as a whole.
High GNP could mask enormous poverty and deprivation within the country and hence a new index was formulated. The index itself
was more the contribution of Mahbu-ul-Haq as he wanted a score sheet to act as a policy advocacy tool apart from making purely
academic calculation. A landmark in policy advocacy of this new index was the Millennium Development framework in 2000 when UN
members pledged to achieve certain measurable goals by 2015, most of which were related to human development. This also had
massive impact on donor funding and has been the dominant global strategy for development since 2000. In one way therefore
Mahbub-ul-Haq's decision to create such an index at the risk of diluting some of the theoretical complexities associated with the
concept of human development was successful as the global development discourse now started to move in the context of the
Millennium Development Goals or MDGs.
After nearly twenty-five years of the development of this index we now perhaps need to re-visit some of the theoretical assumptions
behind Human Development and the Human Development Index. You do not need to be an expert academician or a great scholar in
order to understand why this is required. Consider a situation - a country ensures a high quality of life for its citizens in terms of Human
Development Index but decides to bomb schools and kill children of another country. The Human Development Index will still show that
this country is "very high" in Human Development even though it is committing barbaric inhumanity in another country. If you want an
example check the status of Israel in the Human Development score card of 2014.
Imagine also that a country is "very high" in HDI but is constantly supplying arms to other countries, creating instability, fuelling unrest,
arming radical groups and even bombing on civilians in the name of war on terror. Still the HDI will show that this country belongs to the
"very high" group of Human Development Index. If you want an example check the HDI rank of United States of America.
Imagine a country that is "very high" in HDI but has a banking system that helps corrupt people from all-over the world to save their illgotten wealth and survive any form of disclosure. This country therefore is clearly helping the criminals of the world to stash their cash.
If you want an example see the HDI rank of Switzerland.
Secondly, the HDI ranking is a strange a-historical ranking system. Its puts United States and Bangladesh in the same scoring system
and then finds Bangladesh in 142nd position and United States in the 5th position. It completely ignores the economic status of the two
countries, their histories, when the countries became independent from colonial rule, what was the poverty level of the two countries in
1990 when HDI started, so on and so forth. As a result when you see the Index you are likely to think that Unites States is so much
better than Bangladesh. Was this the purpose of developing the Index and this score card? To remind poor countries every year that
they belong to "medium human development" and "low human development" category? Were this Index and this score card created to
make the rich countries feel good about their "high human development" status?
Whether intentionally or not, the Human Development Index has become complicit in the game that the rich countries play to make rest
of world feel inferior. The poor countries are now being told that not only do they have poor GNP based score, they also have poor HDI
based score and therefore belong to a lower level of the civilized order. Then of course the rich countries can play all sorts of tricks if a
poor country tries to break out of that inferior status. The dirty tricks of the rich countries do not get reflected in the beautifully produced
Human Development Reports every year.
In 2014 Afghanistan's rank is 169th. But who is responsible? The Human Development Index and indeed the human development
approach are silent on the issue.