The United Nations Development Programme has launched its Human Development Report 2010 saying Bangladesh’s Human Development Index increased by 81 per cent in the past 30 years.
A UNDP statement issued in Dhaka Friday said the UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, and Nobel laureate Amartya Sen Thursday launched the global report that ‘spotlights Bangladesh as one of the countries that has made the greatest progress in recent decades as measured by a new version of the Human Development Index’.
It said on the basis of comparable data, Bangladesh’s HDI almost doubled since 1980, and out of the 95 countries for which data is available, Bangladesh was ranked third in terms of the improvement over that period.
‘This should be a source of national pride for every single citizen of Bangladesh. To have managed to continue its vision of development in a very steady manner despite many enormous challenges is a very considerable achievement’, UNDP Bangladesh resident representative Stefan Priesner said.
Ban and Sen jointly released the report, The Real Wealth of Nations: Pathways to Human Development, at a ceremony in New York Thursday coinciding with the 20th anniversary of the UN HDR.
The report revisited the original analytical exercise of 1990, using new methodologies and international data sources, clearly recognises Bangladesh’s developmental achievements.
The first Human Development Report introduced its pioneering HDI and analysed previous decades of development indicators, concluding that ‘there is no automatic link between economic growth and human progress’.
The 2010 report’s rigorous review of longer term trends—looking back at HDI indicators for most countries over the last 30 to 40 years — showed there is no consistent correlation between national economic performance and achievement in the non- income HDI areas of health and education.
According to the 2010 HDI, Bangladesh ranked 129th out of 169 countries, where complete HDI data are available.
UNDP officials said when comparing HDI trends over past two decades, Bangladesh and Cambodia were the ‘best improvers’ in the Asia and Pacific region comprising 24 countries.
‘A big factor has been improvements in life expectancy. Indeed, over the past 40 years, this increased by 23 years in Bangladesh, compared with 18 years in Iran, 16 years in India and 10 years in Afghanistan,’ the UNDP statement said.
The report this year included 2010 HDI rankings based on a reformulated HDI and new Indices for Inequality, Gender and Poverty.
