Guyana has moved up one place on the United Nations Human Development Index (HDI).
Guyana is ranked 118 out of 187 countries with a HDI value 0.636 in the Human Development Report 2013, which was launched globally yesterday.
A copy of the report, which is themed “The Rise of the South: Human Progress in a Diverse World,” was handed over by UNDP Resident Representative Khadija Musa to Minister of Foreign Affairs Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett at a simple ceremony at the Georgetown Club on Camp Street.
Musa explained that between 1980 and 2012, Guyana’s HDI value increased from 0.513 to 0.636, representing an increase of 24% or an average annual increase of about 0.7%. This value placed Guyana in the “Medium Human Development” category of countries. However, the HDI of Latin America and the Caribbean as a region increased from 0.574 in 1980 to 0.741 today, placing Guyana below the regional average.
Musa noted that the HDI values and ranks 187 countries and UN-recognised territories as well as the Inequality-adjusted HDI for 132 countries, the Gender Inequality Index for 148 countries, and the Multidimensional Poverty Index for 104 countries. Countries are grouped under four human development categories: Very High, High, Medium and Low, the cut-off for which is based on human development index quartiles.
The multidimensional poverty index, which measures multiple deprivations in health, education and living standards estimates that 7.7% per cent of the Guyanese live in conditions of multidimensional poverty, reflective of a small decline of 2.3% two years ago.
The report, however, does shows that a Guyanese’s life expectancy at birth is 70.2 years up from 69.2 last year and 59 ten years ago. However, the probability of dying between birth and exactly age five was a comparatively high 30 per 1,000 live births.
Maternal mortality, Musa told Stabroek News, is one Millennium Development Goal that seems difficult for the country to achieve by the 2015 deadline. “One goal that seems difficult for Guyana to meet by 2015 is MDG 5 maternal mortality I would point that as a pressure point for Guyana… I know they are doing everything that they can but it seems hard,” she said, while adding that she remains optimistic about Guyana’s development, since it is a “wealthy country …it has great opportunity.”
Meanwhile, Rodrigues-Birkett welcomed the report but warned that that if growing inequalities were not addressed frontally, it could reverse progress made both in developing and developed countries.
Rodrigues-Birkett tied the progress made by Guyana to the government’s focused spending, especially in areas such as education, health and the other social sectors. “Some years ago, the home-grown policies that focus on the social sector were deemed to be bad for economic development … I am advised that there was one report in which Guyana was marked down because of how much we spent on the social sector, we were deemed bad for business,” she noted.
This year’s theme was reflective of the development accomplishments of developing countries.
Musa noted that the report finds that the rise of the South is radically reshaping the world of the 21st century, with developing nations driving economic growth, lifting hundreds of millions of people from poverty, and propelling billions more into a new global middle class.
“The report shows that more than 40 developing countries have made greater human development gains in recent decades than would have been predicted. These achievements, it says, are largely attributable to sustained investment in education, health care and social programmes, and open engagement with an increasingly interconnected world,” she added.
The report further states that the rise of the South is unprecedented in its speed and scale, observing that never in history has the living conditions and prospects of so many people changed so dramatically and so fast.
As has been the case over the last decade, Norway continues to top the HDI ranking, followed by Australia in second. Niger again ranked last. The report states that available data found that no country this year had a lower HDI value than a decade ago, indicating accelerated achievements in education, health and income dimensions.
