South Sudan and Somalia had the ****** levels of human development based on the Human Development Index (HDI). Many of the countries at the bottom of the list are located in Sub-Saharan Africa, underlining the prevalence of poverty and low levels of education in the region. Meanwhile, Switzerland had the ******* HDI worldwide.

South Sudan had the lowest level of the Human Development Index (HDI) worldwide in 2022 after adjusting for inequality, with a value of 0.22. Its neighbors Chad and the Central African Republic followed behind. Meanwhile, Switzerland topped the HDI not adjusted for inequality.

The average for 2023 based on 184 countries was 0.744 points. The highest value was in Iceland: 0.972 points and the lowest value was in South Africa: 0.388 points. The indicator is available from 1980 to 2023. Below is a chart for all countries where data are available.

Countries from Natural Earth 50M scale data with a Human Development Index attribute, repeated for each of the following years: 1980, 1985, 1990, 1995, 2000, 2005, 2010, & 2013, to enable time-series display using the YEAR attribute. The Human Development Index measures achievement in 3 areas of human development: long life, good education and income. Specifically, the index is computed using life expectancy at birth, Mean years of schooling, expected years of schooling, and gross national income (GNI) per capita (PPP $). The United Nations categorizes the HDI values into 4 groups. In 2013 these groups were defined by the following HDI values: Very High: 0.736 and higher High: 0.615 to 0.735 Medium: 0.494 to 0.614 Low: 0.493 and lower

Human Development Index attributes are from The World Bank: HDRO calculations based on data from UNDESA (2013a), Barro and Lee (2013), UNESCO Institute for Statistics (2013), UN Statistics Division (2014), World Bank (2014) and IMF (2014).

Compared to other African countries, Seychelles scored the highest in the Human Development Index (HDI) in 2022. The country also ranked 67th globally, as one of the countries with a very high human development. This was followed by Mauritius, Libya, Egypt, and Tunisia, with scores ranging from 0.80 to 0.73 points. On the other hand, Central African Republic, South Sudan, and Somalia were among the countries in the region with the lowest index scores, indicating a low level of human development.

The average for 2023 based on 27 countries was 0.915 points. The highest value was in Denmark: 0.962 points and the lowest value was in Bulgaria: 0.845 points. The indicator is available from 1980 to 2023. Below is a chart for all countries where data are available.

In 2021, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Minnesota had the highest Human Development Index (HDI) score of any other states at ****. Many more states had a score just below this at ****. Mississippi had the lowest HDI score at ****, and the U.S. average was ****.

The average for 2023 based on 12 countries was 0.787 points. The highest value was in Chile: 0.878 points and the lowest value was in Venezuela: 0.709 points. The indicator is available from 1980 to 2023. Below is a chart for all countries where data are available.

The Human development index (HDI) for European countries in 2022 shows that although all of the countries in this statistic have scores which imply high levels of development, ************* score of ***** was the highest in this year. The HDI is a statistic that combines life-expectancy, education levels and GDP per capita. Countries with scores over ***** are considered to have very high levels of development, compared with countries that score lower.

Countries from Natural Earth 50M scale data with a Human Development Index attribute for each of the following years: 1980, 1985, 1990, 1995, 2000, 2005, 2010, 2013, 2015, & 2017. The Human Development Index measures achievement in 3 areas of human development: long life, good education and income. Specifically, the index is computed using life expectancy at birth, Mean years of schooling, expected years of schooling, and gross national income (GNI) per capita (PPP $). The United Nations categorizes the HDI values into 4 groups. In 2013 these groups were defined by the following HDI values: Very High: 0.736 and higher High: 0.615 to 0.735 Medium: 0.494 to 0.614 Low: 0.493 and lower

In 2015 & 2017 these groups were defined by the following HDI values: Very High: 0.800 and higher High: 0.700 to 0.799 Medium: 0.550 to 0.699 Low: 0.549 and lower

Human Development Index attributes are from The World Bank: HDRO calculations based on data from UNDESA (2013a), Barro and Lee (2013), UNESCO Institute for Statistics (2013), UN Statistics Division(2014), World Bank (2014) and IMF (2014). 2015 & 2017 values source: HDRO calculations based on data from UNDESA (2017a), UNESCO Institute for Statistics (2018), United Nations Statistics Division (2018b), World Bank (2018b), Barro and Lee (2016) and IMF (2018).

Population data are from (1) United Nations Population Division. World Population Prospects, (2) United Nations Statistical Division. Population and Vital Statistics Report (various years), (3) Census reports and other statistical publications from national statistical offices, (4) Eurostat: Demographic Statistics, (5) Secretariat of the Pacific Community: Statistics and Demography Programme, and (6) U.S. Census Bureau: International Database.

BackgroundEducation and health are both constituents of human capital that enable people to earn higher wages and enhance people’s capabilities. Human capabilities may lead to fulfilling lives by enabling people to achieve a valuable combination of human functionings—i.e., what people are able to do or be as a result of their capabilities. A better understanding of how these different human capabilities are produced together could point to opportunities to help jointly reduce the wide disparities in health and education across populations.Methods and findingsWe use nationally and regionally representative individual-level data from Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) for 55 low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) to examine patterns in human capabilities at the national and regional levels, between 2000 and 2017 (N = 1,657,194 children under age 5). We graphically analyze human capabilities, separately for each country, and propose a novel child-based Human Development Index (HDI) based on under-five survival, maternal educational attainment, and measures of a child’s household wealth. We normalize the range of each component using data on the minimum and maximum values across countries (for national comparisons) or first-level administrative units within countries (for subnational comparisons). The scores that can be generated by the child-based HDI range from 0 to 1.We find considerable heterogeneity in child health across countries as well as within countries. At the national level, the child-based HDI ranged from 0.140 in Niger (with mean across first-level administrative units = 0.277 and standard deviation [SD] 0.114) to 0.755 in Albania (with mean across first-level administrative units = 0.603 and SD 0.089). There are improvements over time overall between the 2000s and 2010s, although this is not the case for all countries included in our study. In Cambodia, Malawi, and Nigeria, for instance, under-five survival improved over time at most levels of maternal education and wealth. In contrast, in the Philippines, we found relatively few changes in under-five survival across the development spectrum and over time. In these countries, the persistent location of geographical areas of poor child health across both the development spectrum and time may indicate within-country poverty traps.Limitations of our study include its descriptive nature, lack of information beyond first- and second-level administrative units, and limited generalizability beyond the countries analyzed.ConclusionsThis study maps patterns and trends in human capabilities and is among the first, to our knowledge, to introduce a child-based HDI at the national and subnational level. Areas of chronic deprivation may indicate within-country poverty traps and require alternative policy approaches to improving child health in low-resource settings.

Europe and Central Asia was the region with the highest Human Development Index (HDI) worldwide at ***. Meanwhile, the lowest HDI was found in Sub-Saharan Africa, underlining the high prevalence of poverty in the region. The difference between the regions was even stronger after adjusting for inequality.

The average for 2023 based on 11 countries was 0.739 points. The highest value was in Singapore: 0.946 points and the lowest value was in Cambodia: 0.606 points. The indicator is available from 1980 to 2023. Below is a chart for all countries where data are available.

The average for 2023 based on 11 countries was 0.721 points. The highest value was in Australia: 0.958 points and the lowest value was in Papua New Guinea: 0.576 points. The indicator is available from 1980 to 2023. Below is a chart for all countries where data are available.

Italy: Human Development Index (0 - 1): The latest value from 2023 is 0.915 points, an increase from 0.906 points in 2022. In comparison, the world average is 0.744 points, based on data from 185 countries. Historically, the average for Italy from 1980 to 2023 is 0.845 points. The minimum value, 0.718 points, was reached in 1980 while the maximum of 0.915 points was recorded in 2023.

France: Human Development Index (0 - 1): The latest value from 2023 is 0.92 points, an increase from 0.91 points in 2022. In comparison, the world average is 0.744 points, based on data from 185 countries. Historically, the average for France from 1980 to 2023 is 0.855 points. The minimum value, 0.722 points, was reached in 1980 while the maximum of 0.92 points was recorded in 2023.

In 2020, the number of immigrants to Iceland from non-EU, EFTA, and candidate countries who held a citizenship from a country with a high or very high Human Development Index (HDI) level increased sharply. On the other hand, the number of people from countries with a medium HDI level dropped from over 600 to less than 340. From 2015 to 2018, the number of immigrants from these countries more than doubled due to the influx of immigrants to Europe in 2015 and 2016. Citizens of countries with a low HDI level was the smallest group of immigrants to Iceland, with only 160 in 2021.

In 2022, Mauritius and the Seychelles scored just over 0.8 points on the Human Development Index (HDI), which indicated a very high level of development. Moreover, this was the highest score achieved in the East African region. Kenya followed, with an HDI of 0.6 points. Conversely, Somalia and South Sudan recorded the lowest in the region with 0.38 points, which signifies low human development.

BackgroundThe development of cognitive and socioemotional skills early in life influences later health and well-being. Existing estimates of unmet developmental potential in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) are based on either measures of physical growth or proxy measures such as poverty. In this paper we aim to directly estimate the number of children in LMICs who would be reported by their caregivers to show low cognitive and/or socioemotional development.Methods and FindingsThe present paper uses Early Childhood Development Index (ECDI) data collected between 2005 and 2015 from 99,222 3- and 4-y-old children living in 35 LMICs as part of the Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS) and Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) programs. First, we estimate the prevalence of low cognitive and/or socioemotional ECDI scores within our MICS/DHS sample. Next, we test a series of ordinary least squares regression models predicting low ECDI scores across our MICS/DHS sample countries based on country-level data from the Human Development Index (HDI) and the Nutrition Impact Model Study. We use cross-validation to select the model with the best predictive validity. We then apply this model to all LMICs to generate country-level estimates of the prevalence of low ECDI scores globally, as well as confidence intervals around these estimates.In the pooled MICS and DHS sample, 14.6% of children had low ECDI scores in the cognitive domain, 26.2% had low socioemotional scores, and 36.8% performed poorly in either or both domains. Country-level prevalence of low cognitive and/or socioemotional scores on the ECDI was best represented by a model using the HDI as a predictor. Applying this model to all LMICs, we estimate that 80.8 million children ages 3 and 4 y (95% CI 48.1 million, 113.6 million) in LMICs experienced low cognitive and/or socioemotional development in 2010, with the largest number of affected children in sub-Saharan Africa (29.4.1 million; 43.8% of children ages 3 and 4 y), followed by South Asia (27.7 million; 37.7%) and the East Asia and Pacific region (15.1 million; 25.9%). Positive associations were found between low development scores and stunting, poverty, male sex, rural residence, and lack of cognitive stimulation. Additional research using more detailed developmental assessments across a larger number of LMICs is needed to address the limitations of the present study.ConclusionsThe number of children globally failing to reach their developmental potential remains large. Additional research is needed to identify the specific causes of poor developmental outcomes in diverse settings, as well as potential context-specific interventions that might promote children’s early cognitive and socioemotional well-being.

In sub-Saharan Africa, a score of 0.55 was achieved on the Human Development Index (HDI) in 2021. This represented a low level of human development. Throughout the periods under study, the sub-region remained within the index scores of 0.42 and 0.56, an indication of low human development.