Over 90 percent of countries monitored registered a decline in their Human Development Index (HDI) score in 2021 – Guyana included.
Despite this, Guyana continues to maintain its position in the High human development category, according to a United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) report.
For the first time in the 32 years that UNDP has been calculating it, the HDI, which measures a nation’s health, education and standard of living, has declined globally for two years in a row. This has reversed progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals to 2016 levels.
In 2020, Guyana registered an HDI score of 0.721, allowing it to move up from the Medium human development category to the High human development category. For 2021, Guyana’s HDI score is 0.714 – a 0.007 decrease from the previous year.
Guyana is now positioned at 108 out of 191 countries and territories. The report also states that between 1990 and 2021, Guyana’s HDI value changed from 0.509 to 0.714, a change of 40.3 percent. For the same period, Guyana’s life expectancy at birth rose by 3.3 years, mean years of schooling climbed by 3.3 years and expected years of schooling increased by 2.8 years. Guyana’s Gross National Income (GNI) per capita escalated by about 996.3 percent between 1990 and 2021, a reflection of the oil revenues being received.
According to the report, the decline in HDI scores for the last two years is due in part to crises like COVID-19 and the war in Ukraine – both of which hit back-to-back, and interacted with sweeping social and economic shifts, dangerous planetary changes, and massive increases in polarization.
“The reversal is nearly universal as over 90 percent of countries registered a decline in their HDI score in either 2020 or 2021 and more than 40 percent declined in both years, signaling that the crisis is still deepening for many,” said the UNDP in a press statement.
“The world is scrambling to respond to back-to-back crises. We have seen with the cost of living and energy crises that, while it is tempting to focus on quick fixes like subsidizing fossil fuels, immediate relief tactics are delaying the long-term systemic changes we must make,” says Achim Steiner, UNDP Administrator. “We are collectively paralyzed in making these changes. In a world defined by uncertainty, we need a renewed sense of global solidarity to tackle our interconnected, common challenges.”
UNDP warns that without a sharp change of course, the world may be heading towards even more deprivations and injustices.
The report also noted that while some countries are beginning to get back on their feet, recovery is uneven and partial, further widening inequalities in human development.
“Latin America, the Caribbean, Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia have been hit particularly hard,” said the report. It was recommended that policies that focus on investment — from renewable energy to preparedness for pandemics, and insurance—including social protection— be implemented to prepare societies for the ups and downs of an uncertain world.
“To navigate uncertainty, we need to double down on human development and look beyond improving people’s wealth or health,” says UNDP’s Pedro Conceição, the report’s lead author. “These remain important. But we also need to protect the planet and provide people with the tools they need to feel more secure, regain a sense of control over their lives and have hope for the future.”
Meanwhile, in its documentation for the Gender Development Index (GDI) – which measures gender inequalities in achievement in three basic dimensions of human development – it was found that the female HDI value for Guyana is 0.704 in contrast with 0.720 for males, resulting in a GDI value of 0.978, placing it into Group 1.
When measuring the Inequality-adjusted HDI, Guyana’s is at 0.591 in 2021 – which is due to a 17.2 percent inequality. The IHDI (Inequality-adjusted HDI) considers inequalities in all three dimensions of the HDI by ‘discounting’ each dimension’s average value according to its level of inequality in the distribution. The ‘loss’ in human development due to inequality is demonstrated by the difference between the HDI and the IHDI. As the inequality in a country increases, the loss in human development also increases, says the report.
The report also reveals that Guyana has a Gender Inequality Index (GII) of 0.454, ranking it 114 out of 170 countries in 2021.
The GII measures gender inequalities (the loss in human development due to inequality between female and male achievements) in three key dimensions – reproductive health, empowerment, and labour market.
