Pakistan Ranks 161st on UN’s HD Index

News Desk

United Nations: Pakistan was ranked 161st among 191 countries on the UN’s Human Development Index (HDI) 2022 annual rankings.

The HDI ranking is measured by combining indicators of health, education, and standards of living, warning that multiple crises, mainly the COVID-19 pandemic, are halting human progress in most countries in the world.

In the 2020 report, Pakistan, which is now placed in the low human development category, ranked 154th among 189 countries and territories.

Addressing the launch event of this flagship study, UNDP Administrator Achim Steiner said: “Nine out of 10 countries in this year’s human development report index are shown to have faced a decline.”

“This has never happened before. Even during the last devastating global moment of crisis, the financial crisis, only one out of 10 countries faced a decline in human development indices,” Achim Steiner added.

The report is the 31st in a series that began in 1990. The first UNDP Human Development Report (HDR) was prepared and launched under the leadership of the late Dr Mahbubul Haq, a former Pakistan finance minister.

In other South Asian countries, India ranked 132nd; Bangladesh ranked 129th; Sri Lanka ranked 73rd; the Maldives ranked 90; Nepal ranked 142; and Bhutan ranked 129th. Switzerland tops this year’s rankings, followed by Norway, Iceland, Hong Kong, Australia, and other wealthy nations. Countries from sub-Saharan Africa are among the lowest ranked in human development, with South Sudan at the bottom.

The report’s lead author, Pedro Conceicao, said the unprecedented decline in human development was driven by economic recession and an extraordinary decline in life expectancy.

Conceicao said the United States ranks 21st, which has seen a dramatic drop in life expectancy due to COVID-19 from 79 years to 76.1 years.

The report author further said other new data from the report show global levels of trust are the lowest on record. Those who are most mistrustful hold the most extreme political views, he added.

“Uncertainty and the feeling of insecurity harden people’s commitments to a group that shares a similar set of beliefs and increase hostility to other groups that think differently,” the study author maintained.

“And digital technology often adds fuel to this flame of divisiveness. So, as a result, the report documents democratic practices are under stress,” he informed.