On the UN’s 2021/22 Human Development Index (HDI) yearly rankings, which combine indicators of health, education, and living standards, Pakistan was ranked 161st out of 191 nations, a warning that numerous problems, most notably the Covid-19 epidemic, are halting human progress in most countries.
Pakistan, which is currently categorized as having low human development, was ranked 154th out of 189 countries and territories in the 2020 report.
“Nine out of 10 countries in this year’s human development report index are shown to have faced a decline,” Achim Steiner, Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), said as he launched the Human Development Report (HDR), a flagship study which the programme produces annually.
“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,” he added
The report is the thirty-first in a run that started in 1990. Under the direction of the late Dr. Mahbubul Haq, a former finance minister of Pakistan, the first UNDP Human Development Report (HDR) was created and released.
India placed 132nd among other South Asian nations on the HDI index, while Bangladesh came in at 129th, Sri Lanka at 73rd, the Maldives at 90, Nepal at 142, and Bhutan at 129th.
The top-ranked country this year is Switzerland, which is followed by Australia, Hong Kong, Hong Kong, Norway, and other affluent countries. South Sudan is at the bottom of the list of sub-Saharan African nations in terms of human development.
Pedro Conceicao, the report’s primary author, claimed that the economic downturn and a shocking drop in life expectancy were to blame for the unprecedented decline in human development. He added that this includes the 21st-ranked United States, where COVID-19 has dramatically reduced life expectancy from 79 years to 76.1 years.
The report’s other recent findings, according to Conceicao, suggest that trust levels worldwide are at their lowest point ever. He added those who are most mistrustful hold the most extreme political views.
“Uncertainty and the feeling of insecurity hardens people’s commitments to a group that shares a similar set of beliefs and increases hostility to other groups that think differently,” he said. “And digital technology often adds fuel to this flame of divisiveness. So, as a result, the report documents that democratic practices are under stress.”
The report warns insecurity and polarization are feeding off each other. And that, it says, is preventing nations from taking the collective action needed to address the multiple threats and crises the world is facing.
