Human Development Index

A scale from zero to 1 ranking countries in terms of the quality of life of its people, particularly the poorest. The index is computed from

gross domestic production per capita, adjusted for local purchasing power
life expectancy at birth
adult literacy
the number of persons enrolled in educational institutions.

Originally developed by Mahbub ul-Haq, the index has been used since 1993 by the United Nations Human Development Program, which issues an annual report. Because of continual improvements in the statistical measures used to determine the score, comparisons of scores or ranks from reports in different years is problematical, if suggestive. The rank of countries has been by far the most popularized use of the index, but the scores themselves are actually much more revealing, as the examples below demonstrate.

Some examples (for 1999, from the 2001 report):

Top Ten
Rank	Country	Score
1	Norway	0.939
2	Australia	0.936
3	Canada	0.936
4	Sweden	0.936
5	Belgium	0.935
6	United States	0.934
7	Iceland	0.932
8	Netherlands	0.931
9	Japan	0.928
10	Finland	0.925

Bottom Ten
Rank	Country	Score
153	Mali	0.378
154	Central African Republic	0.372
155	Chad	0.359
156	Guinea-Bissau	0.339
157	Mozambique	0.323
158	Ethiopia	0.321
159	Burkina Faso	0.320
160	Burundi	0.309
161	Niger	0.274
162	Sierra Leone	0.258

Please consult one of the sources in Resources for the most current scores.

Resources

The complete annual Human Development Report, which contains the human development index scores and an explanation of the methodology, is made available as a pdf file each year at the web site:

www.hdr.undp.org

The printed version in English of the Human Development Report is published by the Oxford University Press.