Human Development Report 2009 - BD in HDI rankings

[FagunerAgun]

United Nations has just published its 2009 human development index (HDI) report. Bangladesh stands in the 146^th place, behind all Asian countries except Afghanistan. Nepal stands in the 144^th, Bhutan 132^nd, India 134^th, Myanmar 138^th, Pakistan 141st, Sri Lanka 102^nd and Afghanistan 181^st.

Among the SAF countries, Bangladesh is the 2^nd worst country, way ahead of war torn Afghanistan but behind other countries.

In the index, Norway is the best country of the world while Canada ranks 4th and USA 13th.




Source: UNDP Index.

[Rubu]

That's sad. We should at least be the leader among South Asian countries.

[Zeeshan]

Originally Posted by Rubu
That's sad. We should at least be the leader among South Asian countries.

More weed oughta' do the trick. Just look at Netherlands' ranking.

[uss01]

That will never happen untill we stop failing to educate our youth and start treating our poor people fairly (i.e. giving them their money's worth when they work, paying them on time, etc, etc).

Originally Posted by Rubu
That's sad. We should at least be the leader among South Asian countries.

[Zeeshan]

The top ten countries listed on the index are: Norway, Australia, Iceland, Canada, Ireland, the Netherlands, Sweden, France, Switzerland and Japan

Link...

[Dhruvo]

Didnt see that one coming, I mean how on earth are we behind Myanmar and Pakistan ? (no offense to the 2 countries, but seriously!)

Originally Posted by ZeeshanM
More weed oughta' do the trick. Just look at Netherlands' ranking.

Hahahaha

[al Furqaan]

yeah how are we behind bhutan, nepal, myanmur and pak???

[Tigers_eye]

Originally Posted by al Furqaan
yeah how are we behind bhutan, nepal, ... and pak???

Cause those are run by our "protibeshi".

[FagunerAgun]

Originally Posted by Tigers_eye
Cause those are run by our "protibeshi".

Let's pick Bhutan and analyze why Bangladesh is far behind this tiny country.

The HDI provides a composite measure of three dimensions of human development: living a long and healthy life (measured by life expectancy), being educated (measured by adult literacy and gross enrolment in education) and having a decent standard of living (measured by purchasing power parity, PPP, income). The index is not in any sense a comprehensive measure of human development. It does not, for example, include important indicators such as gender or income inequality nor more difficult to measure concepts like respect for human rights and political freedoms. What it does provide is a broadened prism for viewing human progress and the complex relationship between income and well-being.

Of the components of the HDI, only income and gross enrolment are somewhat responsive to short term policy changes. For that reason, it is important to examine changes in the human development index over time. The human development index trends tell an important story in that respect. Between 1980 and 2007 Bangladesh's HDI rose by 1.86% annually from 0.328 to 0.543 today. HDI scores in all regions have increased progressively over the years although all have experienced periods of slower growth or even reversals. (Periods from 1990-1995 and from 2000-2005 as per the chart above show slower growth or reversal).

This year's Bhutan's HDI, which refers to 2007, highlights the very large gaps in well-being and life chances that continue to divide our increasingly interconnected world. The HDI for Bhutan is 0.619, which gives the country a rank of 132^nd out of 182 countries.



We need to manage our own books, our own country with political and economic foresight and effective and sustainable strategies going beyond corruption and greed.

[Tigers_eye]

Originally Posted by FagunerAgun
... Between 1980 and 2007 Bangladesh's ....


We need to manage our own books, our own country with political and economic foresight and effective and sustainable strategies going beyond corruption and greed.

Sir,
Between 1980 and 2007 BD population grew by more than half fold. Which would 1000 times more than what Bhutan's population is (just guessing). All increase in income level is not only negated but inversely affected by this growth alone.
+++
As for corruption: Show me a nation which is not corrupted please. BD is no less than Ind, Pak, China, hmm!! USA in that category. Of course we can and have to manage our books better. But pointing fingers do not help.

(USA level of corruption: Just last month I [representing Govt. side] was involved in Phamacuetical settlement of for off-label marketing [chorai mal] and KICKBACKs [Ghush] which was 2.3 BILLION USD. Do you know what is BD's budget for the fiscal year of 2010?)

[Banglatiger84]

We are below Pakistan, a country which still has hundreds of thousands of bonded labor?

[imtiaz82]

Originally Posted by Banglatiger84
We are below Pakistan, a country which still has hundreds of thousands of bonded labor?

Even though I am not an expert in Human Development Index, I think the following could be the reasons for BD to be behind Pak:

1. Bangladesh started with much lower base HDI level than Pak, since our infrastructure was completely destroyed in 1971 with millions homeless etc. So we had to start building roads, highways to educational institutes.

2. Pakistan is 5.5 times the size of Bangladesh but with almost the same population. This means they have relatively more resources to improve their economy, which in turns helps HDI index.

3. Bangladesh is more prone to natural disasters like cyclone and flood. The impact of yearly flooding is specially significant since it covers huge localities and destroys crops. Pakistan faced multiple earthquake incidents aswell, but these are not so common as floods and impact is limited.

But inspite of the above shortcomings, Bangladesh has improved on HDI at a faster rate than neighboring countries in multiple indicators like infant mortality, primary school enrollment, sanitation- we are better than India,Pakistan in all these 3 areas, due to empowerment of women in rural areas, extensive microcredit schemes and role of NGOs.

[Fazal]

Human Development?

What does it really means?
Opposite to Population Control ?
Manus Poida?
Shouldn't we be the first in the list?

[FagunerAgun]

Originally Posted by imtiaz82
Even though I am not an expert in Human Development Index, I think the following could be the reasons for BD to be behind Pak:

1. Bangladesh started with much lower base HDI level than Pak, since our infrastructure was completely destroyed in 1971 with millions homeless etc. So we had to start building roads, highways to educational institutes.

2. Pakistan is 5.5 times the size of Bangladesh but with almost the same population. This means they have relatively more resources to improve their economy, which in turns helps HDI index.

3. Bangladesh is more prone to natural disasters like cyclone and flood. The impact of yearly flooding is specially significant since it covers huge localities and destroys crops. Pakistan faced multiple earthquake incidents aswell, but these are not so common as floods and impact is limited.

But inspite of the above shortcomings, Bangladesh has improved on HDI at a faster rate than neighboring countries in multiple indicators like infant mortality, primary school enrollment, sanitation- we are better than India in all these 3 areas, due to empowerment of women in rural areas, extensive microcredit schemes and role of NGOs.

Nice analysis. These are some of the factors that cause slower growth, even reversal in some regions of Bangladesh.

GDP per-capita factors the difference between Pakistan and Bangladesh in HDI rankings. Here is the chart:



Source: UNDP HDI Reports 2009.

[imtiaz82]

Bangladesh leads South Asia in fighting hunger

Ranks 13 among 29 vulnerable nations

Unb, Dhaka
Bangladesh has ranked 13th among 29 vulnerable countries in terms of combating hunger by successfully reducing its rate over the last few years.

Scoring 41 points in the global scorecard on hunger situation, Bangladesh has outpaced its neighbouring countries--India (22nd),Pakistan(26th) and Nepal (19th).
Marking the World Food Day, ActionAid International yesterday published the scorecards in its UK based research titled 'Who is Really Fighting Hunger.'
"Bangladesh has made a good progress in reducing the number of chronically food insecure citizens--from 40 million to 27 million--over the last decade," said the research report.
The report also said that though Bangladesh has improved the status of nutrition of the under-five children in the last two decades, it still has a long way to go to combat malnutrition.
"Providing hot cooked school meals to its 20 million school-going children could potentially make a huge impact in this regard," it said.
It lauded the government for its budgetary allocations for the absolute poor through increased safety net programmes, which include partial coverage of nutritional programmes, subsidised food and employment programmes.
In order to reduce the vulnerability of rural poor, the report suggested finding out a permanent solution to the annual monga (near famine situation).
"Bangladesh is trying to address the issue of hunger of its 150 million people with its meagre resources and in the last two decades it has succeeded to improve, to some extent, the health of the under-five children," said ActionAid Bangladesh Country Director Farah Kabir while talking about the issue.
Farah Kabir pointed out hunger as one of the root causes of poverty and underscored the need for increasing investment in sustainable agricultural development to address the two problems, said a press release.
"Any discussion on hunger and intervention must put the poor, marginalised section and women at the core of planning and investment," she added.
She demanded the government ensure equitable distribution of food across the region at different times.
Brazil topped an anti-hunger scorecard followed by China where 58 million people have more to eat but India earned low marks in the ActionAid index, reports AFP.
ActionAid said 30 million more people in India, listed at number 22 after countries like Ethiopia and Lesotho, had slipped into the hungry category since the mid-1990s.
Less than nine percent of China's population now go hungry with 58 million people no longer undernourished, edging the Asian giant into second place on the developing state table.
ActionAid also called on world leaders to fight hunger by supporting small farmers, protect rights to food, and tackle climate change.
http://www.thedailystar.net/newDesig...php?nid=110087

[Zeeshan]

...Neighbouring Bangladesh is praised for reducing the number of chronically food-insecure people from 40 million to 27 million in the past 10 years and for improving childhood nutrition in the past two decades.

But the report says Bangladesh has a long way to go to reduce overall malnutrition and build a sustainable agricultural system. ...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/nol/ukfs_news/...00/8309979.stm

[FagunerAgun]

Just to ZeeshamM, people were killed in many countries while trying to loot food supplies during the last global food crisis, it happened in Pakistan, Malaysia, Brazil, most of the countries in Africa, France and other countries in the world.

But nobody was killed in Bangladesh while trying to loot food trucks. I believe nobody died of starvation. This is a strategic success for us needs to be sustainable in our future policies to secure enough food for everyone in case there is a food crisis.

I also like this government's policy to buy more rice and wheat while we have enough in stock. This will help us save money if there is a food crisis when rice and wheat prices skyrocket.

[One World]

Right, nobody died. Only farmers got shot, killed and wounded while asking for fertilizers.
Also whole north Bengal was fed like everyday was Eid!!