GUYANA has moved up one place in the Human Development Index (HDI), and is now classified as being in the Medium Human Development Category, ranking 118 out of a total of 187 countries in the HDI.

This was revealed yesterday when the United Nations Development Programme’s (UNDP) 2013 Human Development Report was launched under the theme: “The Rise of the South: Human progress in a diverse world.”
Speaking at the launch of the report, at the Georgetown Club on Camp Street, UNDP Resident Representative, Ms. Khadija Musa said the report revealed that Guyana’s HDI value increased from 0.513 to 0.636 over the past year.
She added that there has been in Guyana an average HDI value increase of 24% between 1980 and 2012, and this shows that the country has had an average annual value increase of 0.7%.
Ms. Musa noted that HDI presents a summary measure for assessing long-term progress in three basic dimensions of human development – a long healthy life, access to knowledge, and decent living standards.
Countries in the HDI, she said, have been grouped under four human development categories – very high human development, high human development, medium human development, and low human development. The HDI, she pointed out, also includes the Inequality Adjustment HDI, Gender Inequality Index, and the multidimensional Poverty Index, of which the latter two are new features.
According to her, the report reveals that the average HDI value for Latin America and the Caribbean region is the second highest in the world, with an average of 0.741, placing it next to Europe and Central Asia’s average of 0.77. Ms. Musa further stated that the average in Latin America and the Caribbean region is also higher than the world average of 0.694.
The report reveals that the rise of the South is radically reshaping the world of the 21st century, with the developing nations driving economic growth, lifting hundreds of millions of people from poverty, and propelling billions more into a new global middle class.
According to her, the report also shows that more than 40 developing countries have made greater human development gains in recent decades than would have been predicted.
The report attributes these achievements to sustained investment in education, health care, and social programmes and open engagement with an increasingly interconnected world.
The report, she said, reveals that countries across the South are extending trade, technology and policy ties throughout the North, while the North is looking South for new partnerships that can promote global growth and development.
“The South as a whole is driving global economic growth and societal change for the first time in centuries”, the report added.
Meanwhile, in her remarks on the occasion, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Ms Carolyn Rodrigues- Birkett, said that while the Government of Guyana applauds the progress made, particularly in the developing countries, there’s also the recognition that there’s much more work to be done.
Highlighting the issue of inequality, the Foreign Affairs Minister noted that, notwithstanding the significant progress made in Latin America and the Caribbean, and the leading role played by Brazil in the reduction of poverty, the region remains the most unequal in the world.
According to her, the report points out that there’s growing inequality in many countries, both developing and developed, and this problem must be addressed frontally, or else the progress made today can be set back.
She said she believes that this inequality, or inequity, must also be addressed at the level of the international institutions, to which the report speaks.
Minister Birkett remarked that the role of education must not be underestimated, and pointed out that Guyana not only spends a great part of its budget on education, but on health and the social sectors. This, she indicated, is due to the government recognizing the benefits to be accrued from this investment, both in the short and long term, and it is the right thing to do.
She opined that Guyana will continue on the path of human development, and noted that she would like to see the country move up the rankings more rapidly; but nevertheless she is pleased that, in the circumstances, the country has been able to move up one place in the HDI.
Minister Birkett expressed the gratitude of the Government of Guyana to the UNDP, particularly the authors of the report, for producing yet another report which captures the situation of the world’s people.
The government, she said, always welcomes these types of assessments, which can stand up to scrutiny and highlights where the country is placed in the global community.