Friday, March 29, 2013
Human Development Report 2013 and Inequality
By BEIF Team
The Human Development Report 2013 has recently been published by the UNDP. While noting the tremendous growth in human development due to the rise of developing economies on the global stage, the report also sounds a few caution bells. A few excerpts from the report are below:
“Inequality reduces the pace of human development and in some cases my even prevent it entirely. Globally, there have been much greater reductions in inequality in health and education in the last two decades than in income”
“Growth has frequently been much more effective at reducing poverty in countries with low income inequality than in countries with high income inequality”
In a ranking of countries on human development, Norway tops the list, followed by Australia and the US. But, when human development is adjusted to inequality in a society, the rank of the US falls from 3 to 16. Another notable country is South Korea, which slips from a rank of 12 on human development to a rank of 28 on inequality adjusted human development. Clearly, countries can better improve human development if they are more equal.