Finland up two places to 11th on annual Human Development Index

Latest Human Development Report points to growing disparities between rich and poor

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The latest Human Development Report from the United Nations presents a depressing picture of a world in which 1.8 million children die each year from diarrhoea or other ailments that could be prevented through access to clean water.
      The United Nationas Development Programme argues persuasively that dirty water is a much greater threat to people in the developing world than, for instance, armed conflicts.
      In addition to drawing attention to the water crisis as such, the UNDP notes pertinently that it does not stem from a lack of water itself, but from poverty, inequality, and systemically poor administration. The problem is at its worst in sub-Saharan Africa and in the poorest countries of Asia - and it is the poorest of all who suffer most.
     
The UNDP urges that the right to clean water be declared a basic human right, and notes that every person on the planet requires at least 20 litres of clean water per day.
      At present, this "luxury" is not enjoyed by around 1.1 billion inhabitants of the planet, while 2.6 billion lack access to decent basic hygiene.
      The Human Development Report also draws attention to the growing chasm between conditions in the richest and poorest countries of the world. The annual Human Development Index compares living conditions in the world's nations and determines rankings based on a series of parameters, including life expectancy, education enrolment levels, adult literacy, and per capita GDP.
     
The names at either end of the list make familiar reading from one year to the next. Norway again comes out on top, joined by Iceland, Australia, Ireland, and Sweden in the top five.
      Down at the other end of the table comes Niger, along with a long string of countries from sub-Saharan Africa, where progress has been negligible in recent years, and where life expectancy has often even declined, as a result of the HIV/AIDS epidemic.
      Norwegians are forty times richer than people in Niger by GDP, and they also enjoy a life expectancy almost twice as high (79.6 to 44.6 years).
     
Finland moved up two places in the hierarchy to 11th. The Finns scored an HDI figure of 0.947, the same as 9th-placed Switzerland and 10th-placed The Netherlands.
      In terms of performance relative to pure per capita GDP, Finland punched slightly above its weight, since the country is ranked at 15th by this measure, with a GDP per capita in 2004 of just under USD 30,000.
      Certain countries, such as Australia, Sweden, and Chile, score well above their per capita wealth, indicating a good harnessing of available resources for their populations, while others - like the oil-rich United Arab Emirates - come appreciably lower on the HDI than their raw GDP data would suggest. Iraq and Afghanistan do not figure in the listing, as the endemic violence in these countries prevents the collection of reliable data.
      The full details of this large and complex report are given in the links below.


Links:
  UN Human Development Office
  UN Human Development Report 2006 (full report, .pdf file)
  Human Development Index (Wikipedia)

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