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Wednesday, 11 December 2019 00:41 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}
- Breaks into high human development category
- Leads South Asia across several development indexes
Sri Lanka gained five positions this year on the Human Development Index (HDI) to rank 71st, breaking into the category of High Human Development.
According to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the HDI provides an alternative single-number measure, capturing progress across three basic dimensions of human development: health, education and living standards.
Despite the scale meeting with some criticism, it is nevertheless considered an important yardstick to gauge countries’ progress toward broader Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
The progression in the HDI ranking was revealed yesterday when the UNDP released the 2019 Human Development Report (HDR). Sri Lanka ranked 76 out of 189 countries in 2017. The report reveals Sri Lanka’s 2018 HDI value to be 0.78, which is above the average of 0.75 for countries in the group and above the average of 0.642 for countries in South Asia. Sri Lanka’s rank of 71 positions it ahead of India and Pakistan which hold the ranks of 129 and 152 respectively.
HDR 2019 indicates that Sri Lanka had a HDI of 0.780, a slight rise from the 2018 report’s HDI of 0.770 and a ranking of 76. While the report looks at data from the previous year, Sri Lanka reported a life expectancy at birth of 76.8 years in 2018, a slight increase from the previous year’s 75.5 years.
There have also been increases in education-related statistics, with the 13.9 expected years of schooling and 10.9 mean years of schooling in the 2018 report rising to 14 expected years of schooling and 11.1 mean years of schooling the following year. The Gross National Income (GNI) per capita in the 2019 report was 11,611, showing a slight increase from the 11,326 GNI per capita documented in the 2018 HDR.
HDR 2019 also points to Sri Lanka faring better than its South Asian neighbours in terms of gender equality. The report measures a Gender Development Index (GDI), calculated for 166 countries, and also looks at gender-based inequality in the achievement of three basic dimensions of human development - health, education and command over economic resources.
Sri Lanka has achieved a GDI value of 0.938, placing it in Group 3, which according to the UNDP indicates medium equality. The GDI values for India and Pakistan are 0.829 and 0.747 respectively.
