17 November, 2006

2006 Human Development Report

The UN has recently released it 2006 Human Development report (you can download the entire report here - 8MB pdf file). It is more than 400 pages, but the two things that seem to be getting most of the media attention are the focus on global water shortages (UN urges end to 'water apartheid') and the report I saw this morning, its Human Development Index, or as the media puts it, ranking the best and worst places to live (Norway ranked as best country to live in).

The ten highest rated countries:

1. Norway
2. Iceland
3. Australia
4. Ireland
5. Sweden
6. Canada
7. Japan
8. United States
9. Switzerland
10. Netherlands

The ranks for GCC countries:

33. Kuwait
39. Bahrain
46. Qatar
49. UAE
56. Oman
76. Saudi Arabia

Saudi is the only one not in the High Human Development section. Yemen is ranked 150.

4 comments:

Brn said...

The ranking part of the report starts on page 283. Each country has scores in several areas. The Human development index (HDI) is the total. Kuwait's was 0.871, UAE's 0.839.

The other areas are:
Life expectancy at birth (Kuwait 77.1, UAE 78.3)

Adult literacy rate (ages 15+) (Kuwait 93.3%, UAE 77%),

Combined gross enrollment ratio
for primary, secondary and tertiary schools (Kuwait: 73%, UAE: 60)

GDP per capita
(Kuwait US$19,384, UAE US$24,056)

Life expectancy index (Kuwait: 0.87, UAE: 0.89)

Education index (Kuwait: 0.87, UAE: 0.71)

GDP index (Kuwait: 0.88, UAE: 0.92)

So pretty clearly the standards being used are penalizing the UAE for the educational/literacy level.

The GDP per capita rank minus HDI rank is pretty interesting too. If I understand what they are doing with it, it is the number of ranking places that each country gained or lost based on non-GDP factors. For example, the US lost 6 places, from #2 to #8. Kuwait gained two places and the UAE lost 25, which was the biggest drop in the High Human Development category. So without those, the UAE would have been 24 and Kuwait 35.

Mrs. Azucena said...

phewy we went down 8 notches!

Lirun said...

i was in oslo earlier this year.. my hosts were amazing and the place is very very beautiful..

still - i dont know if i'd want to live there..

Anonymous said...

It seems like there is a huge positive correlation between "human development" and "Moral and social decay."

Nice.

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