Guyana is now ranked at 117 on the United Nations Development Programme Human Development index; having moved up two points from last year, a report issued today said, and is one of the countries listed as having medium human development.
Guyana was ranked at 104 last year out of 169 countries evaluated; this year, the report captures 187 countries.
Guyana’s life expectancy was set at 69.9 years, while last year it was 67.8 years.
On the gender inequality index Guyana’s rating was 106, with its male/female secondary education listed as 77.5/73.6 in 2010 and its male/female labour participation stated as 80.9/72.3 in 2009, the years for which figures are available. Female parliamentary participation is 30%.
The report, titled ‘Sustainability and Equity: A Better Future for All’, listed Guyana’s poverty level at 39.5% as against 39.7% last year.
To better understand environmental deprivations, the report analysed the data holding poverty levels constant. Countries were ordered by their share of multi-dimensionally poor people facing one or more environmental deprivations and the share facing all three. In both cases the share of the population with environmental deprivations rises with the MPI but with much variation around the trend.
Countries above the trend line have higher than average environmental poverty, and those below perform better. The countries with the lowest shares of their population facing at least one deprivation are concentrated in the Arab States and Latin America and the Caribbean (7 of the top 10), while those with the lowest share of the population with all three are concentrated in South Asia (5 of the leading 10).
Brazil, Djibouti, Guyana, Morocco and Pakistan are in both top 10 lists. They perform well in having a low share of the population with at least one environmental deprivation and with all three.
Norway topped the HDI ranking for the ninth time this year followed by Australia, the Netherlands, the United States and New Zealand rounding out the top five. The Democratic Republic of Congo came at bottom of the 187 nations ranked, behind Niger, Burundi, Mozambique and Chad.
