Sunday, 13 Oct, 2024
By: Anshul Vipat
India ranked 132, a fall of one place on the Human Development Index (HDI) 2021, showed the Human Development Report 2021-22 that was released on Thursday. India has slid on the rankings two years in a row — 2020 and 2021.
India ranked 132, a fall of one placeon the Human Devlopment Index (HDI) 2021, showed the Human Development Report 2021-22 that was released on Thursday. India has slid on the rankings two years in a row — 2020 and 2021.
According to the report released by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), India’s HDI value stood at 0.633 in 2021, lower than the world average of 0.732. In 2020, India's HDI was 0.642, while in 2019 it was 0.645. Human Development - a measure of a nation’s health, education, and average income – has been declining since 2020, reversing few years of progress, reversing a steady growth in the past two decades.
HDI is a composite index that ranks countries on human development by taking into account four indicators: life expectancy at birth, expected years of schooling, mean years of schooling, and gross national income (GNI) per capita. This is expressed as a value between 0 and 1. The higher a country's human development, the higher its HDI value.
On all these four parameters, India was behind the world averages. In 2021, India's life expectancy at birth was recorded at 67.2 years, mean years of schooling at 6.7 years; and gross national income per capita (2017 PPP) stood at $6,590.
However, the good news is India’s HDI value continues to exceed South Asia's average human development. This reflects years of sustained focus on developing socio-economic indicators.
India in line with global trend
India's drop in HDI value was in line with a global drop in HDI due to COVID-19 pandemic and its consequences. If we take a close look at the report, 90 percent of countries have registered a reduction in their Human Development Index value in 2020 or 2021. Human development has fallen back to its 2016 levels reversing much of the progress toward the Sustainable Development Goals. The report indicated that human development across the world has stalled for the first time in 32 years.
Source: World Population Review
Countries which stood at the bottom of HDI index were South Sudan, Chad, Niger, Central African Republic and Burundi. While the Sub-Saharan Africa has been hit the highest in the couple of years, HDI index showed that even devloped economies were not spared. High human development economies like the Philippines and Venezuela have slipped to a medium development category.
On the other hand, Switzerland topped the index followed by Norway, Iceland, Hong Kong and Australia. The rankings of our South Asian neighbours was - Bangladesh (129th), Bhutan (127th), Sri Lanka (73rd) and China (79th)
One of the primary reasons for decline in global HDI value decline is a global drop in life expectancy, down from 72.8 years in 2019 to 71.4 years in 2021. India too reported a decline in life expectancy from 69.7 to 67.2 years.
While India is performing positively on the economic front, much progress is required to uplift the socio-economic indicators. A sustainable and inclusive growth is a must for overall development of the country.
