Ethiopia recorded massive improvements in Human Development Index(HDI), according to the 2010 Hu
man Development Report released on Friday. Ethiopia has the third fastest annual HDI growth rate in the world since year 2000.
According to the report, Ethiopia’s 2010 HDI score is 0.328, which puts her at a rank of 157 out of 169 countries with comparable data.
However, Ethiopia’s HDI score improved from 0.250 to 0.328 between the year 2000-2010; that is a 2.73% average annual growth in HDI, according to the data presented in the report. This is the third fastest average annual HDI growth rate in the world. The top two are Rwanda and Sierra Leone with an average annual HDI growth rate of 3.31% and 2.95%, respectively.
The report also presented analysis of the past 40 years, that is 1970-1990. Though I couldn’t download and see the data of the last four decades(technical glitch), the press statement made on the release of the report states that Ethiopia’s improvement of the past decades ranks 11th in the world. It stated:
The next 10 leaders in HDI improvement over the past 40 years include several low-income but high HDI-achieving countries “not typically described as success stories,” the Report notes, among them Ethiopia (#11), Cambodia (#15) and Benin (#18) —all of which made big gains in education and public health.
It should be noted that Ethiopia had been toiling under a military dictatorship in the first two of the four decades. And the third decade was consumed mostly by political reorganization and the war with Eritrea.
The Human Development Index (HDI) is annually published by UNDP since 1990. It is deemed to be a summary measure of human development. It is intended measure ‘the average achievements in a country in three basic dimensions of human development: a long and healthy life, access to knowledge and a decent standard of living.’
HDI is developed as an alternative to conventional measures of national development, such as level of income and the rate of economic growth. ‘The HDI represents a push for a broader definition of well-being and provides a composite measure of three basic dimensions of human development: health, education and income.’
Here are some of the data about Ethiopia in the report
(I intend to present you the essential facts included in the report about Ethiopia, in the coming days)
| Ethiopia | Life expectancy at birth (years) | Education index | GNI per capita (constant 2008 PPP US$) – calculated | Income index |
| 2000 | 51.40 | 0.16 | 567.00 | 0.19 |
| 2001 | 51.85 | 0.17 | 599.00 | 0.20 |
| 2002 | 52.31 | 0.18 | 593.00 | 0.20 |
| 2003 | 52.78 | 0.18 | 564.00 | 0.19 |
| 2004 | 53.27 | 0.19 | 625.00 | 0.21 |
| 2005 | 53.76 | 0.20 | 683.00 | 0.22 |
| 2006 | 54.26 | 0.21 | 738.00 | 0.23 |
| 2007 | 54.75 | 0.22 | 802.00 | 0.25 |
| 2008 | 55.22 | 0.22 | 870.00 | 0.26 |
| 2009 | 55.69 | 0.22 | 943.00 | 0.27 |
| 2010 | 56.13 | 0.22 | 992.00 | 0.28 |
GNI (gross national income) per capita – Sum of value added by all resident producers in the economy plus any product taxes (less subsidies) not included in the valuation of output plus net receipts of primary income (compensation of employees and property income) from abroad, divided by midyear population. Value added is the net output of an industry after adding up all outputs and subtracting intermediate inputs. When expressed in PPP US dollar terms, it is converted to international dollars using PPP rates. An international dollar has the same purchasing power over GDP that a US dollar has in the United States.
I intend to present you the essential facts included in the report about Ethiopia, in the coming days, as I finish digesting the tables and explanatory notes presented in some 20 PDF docs and half a dozen excel format documents.
Stay Tuned.
