The global Human Development Report of 2023-24 has been released recently by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) from New York. Since 1990, this report has been presenting rankings of countries in the Human Development Index (HDI).

The HDI of a country is measured by four indicators, as follows:

Gross national Income per capita (in PPP $)

Life expectancy at birth (years)

Expected years of schooling (years)

Mean years of schooling (years)

The value of the HDI ranges from 0 to 1. Grouping of countries is done on the following basis:

========================

High: 0.8 to 1.0

Medium: 0.550 to 0.8

Low: Below 0.550

========================

The extremely depressing finding from the report is that according to the latest ranking Pakistan is ranked 164thout of 193 countries. With HDI of 0.540 it is in the group of countries with a low level of human development.

Pakistan has fallen from the medium to low level of human development over the years. According to the 2020 ranking, Pakistan was in the 154th position. The HDI value was 0.557 and it was characterized as a country with a medium level of human development. In the 2021-22 ranking it fell to the 161st position and was relegated to countries with a low level of HDI.

The source of further concern is that Pakistan is ranked in the HDI way below Bangladesh and India. Bangladesh has a HDI of 0.670, which is 24% higher than that of........

© Business Recorder