Question

Compare the social-economic conditions of the people in the countries with different human development levels.

Answer 1

The high level of human development group has 53 countries. Providing education and healthcare is an important government priority. Countries with higher human development are those where a lot of investment in the social sector has taken place. Altogether, higher investment in people and good governance has set this group of countries apart from the others. Many of these countries have been former imperial powers. The degree of social diversity in these countries is not very high. Many of the countries with a high human development score are located in Europe and represent the industrialized western world. Yet there are striking numbers of non-European countries also who have made it to this list.

Countries with medium levels of human development form the largest group. There are 42 countries at the medium level of human development. Most of these are countries that have emerged in the period after the Second World War. Some countries from this group were former colonies while many others have emerged after the break up of the erstwhile Soviet Union in 1990. Many of these countries have been rapidly improving their human development score by adopting more people-oriented policies and reducing social discrimination. Most of these countries have a much higher social diversity than the countries with higher human development scores. Many in this group have faced political instability and social uprisings at some point of time in their recent history.

As many as 43 countries record low levels of human development. A large proportion of these is small countries that have been going through political turmoil and social instability in the form of civil war, famine, or a high incidence of diseases. There is an urgent need to address the human development requirements of this group through well thought out policies.