CORRECTION: My previous post, on Nov.06/’10, stated that Ethiopia recorded the third fastest average annual HDI growth rate in the world between 2000-2010. However, according to the press release by the UNDP in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia registered the 2nd highest improvement in the world between 2000-10, and the highest improvement in the world between 2005-10.
I deeply regret the error and thank the reader who brought it to my attention. The cause of the error is that I used the data in the document ‘HDI Trends 1980-2010’ to compute the ranks, whereas the appropriate data for cross-temporal comparisons are found in the document ‘2010 Hybrid HDI Data’. I will present the contents of the later document in my upcoming post.
Here is the full text of the press release by UNDP.
Ethiopia is among the top development movers: the 2010 Human Development Report asserts
4 November 2010: According to the 2010 HDR, most developing nations made dramatic, yet often underestimated, progress in health, education and basic living standards in recent decades. Ethiopia is rated among these ”top movers” at rank 11 out of the 135 countries which registered improvement in Human Development Index that stretched the rating between 1970 and 2010. While assessing the achievement status of same countries between 2000 and 2010, Ethiopia’s status goes up to put the country 2nd rank.
Same measurement was also conducted between 2005 and 2010. According to the measurement done between 2005 and 2010, Ethiopia’s position comes at the top of the top movers of the development achievers. The report states that between 2000 and 2010, Ethiopia’s life expectancy at birth increased by almost 5 years, GNI per capita increased by 75 per cent, expected years of schooling increased by 4 years, while mean years of schooling
remained the same.
The 2010 HDR cautions that this year’s HDI values should not be compared with previous years’ HDI values because of changes in underlying data and methods of computation. Further, the 2010 report calls for “further research and better data to assess challenges in other critical aspects of human development, including political empowerment and environmental sustainability.”
The 2010 Report entitled “The Real Wealth of Nations: Pathways to Human Development” was launched globally yesterday in New York in the presence of the UN Secretary-General, Mr. Ban Ki-moon, and UNDP Administrator Ms. Helen Clark. The Human Development Report (HDR) is commissioned annually by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). The 2010 HDR, which is the 20th anniversary edition of the Report since its inception in 1990, introduces three new indices to measure countries’ status of well being. It covers data for 169 countries for which complete Human Development Index (HDI) data is available for the past 40 years.
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Note that: The Human Development Reports are commissioned annually by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), however they are editorially independent from UNDP.
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