The Human Development Index

The Human Development Index (HDI) is a system used to summerize the basic developmental achievements of the countries of the world by comparing them to the development of other nations. The HDI is published by the United Nations Development Programme yearly and calculates an HDI score for each country based on three developmental aspects; health, knowledge and standard of living. Health is defined by life expectancy at birth, knowledge is gauged by combining adult literacy rates and enrollment ratios, and standard of living is found by assessing GDP per capita. 179 countries are currently ranked by the HDI on a 1.0 scale that also places countries in 1 of 3 broader developmental categories; High Human Development, Medium Human Development, and Low Human Development. The three countries with the highest HDI are Iceland, Norway and Canada. Meanwhile the three lowest scorers on the HDI are the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Central African Republic and Sierra Leone.

When looking over the complete HDI rankings, distinct patterns emerge in regard to development in different world regions. Countries considered to have "High Human Development" are concentrated mainly in the Western Hemisphere and Europe. Several Latin American and wealthy Middle Eastern countries also achieve a high HDI score, but the majority are limited to the modern Western World. Countries with "Medium Human Development" are found mostly in Central America, South America, Asia, the Middle East, and a few African nations. Finally, "Low Human Development" is completely isolated in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Africa as a whole clearly lags behind the rest of the world in development. This is likely due to several factors, including wars, famines, the extensive colonization of Africa by Europeans, the unavailability and underallocation of food and natural resources, and epidemics including malaria and HIV/AIDS. It is true that most African countries have only gained their independence over the past century, and are therefore naturally behind in development. However, in many nations, development is simply not occuring, and the suffering of a growing population continues to increase in the face of war, starvation and famine. The future of the populations of African nations relies heavily on whether or not Africa can develop enough in order that the basic needs of its inhabitants can be provided for.

-Daniel Uden 3/4/2009