Sri Lanka improves ranking in Human Development Index 2019

Sri Lanka has been ranked 71 out of 189 countries according to ‘the Human Development Index (HDI) 2019’ released by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) yesterday.

Compared to 2018, this is an improvement by 5 ranks.

Sri Lanka, with a value of ‘0.780’ in a scale ranging between 0-1, falls under the category of countries with ‘High Human Development’.

Key dimensions considered in the HDI rankings were “having a long and healthy life, being knowledgeable and having a decent standard of living”.

According to the HDI 2019 report, Sri Lanka’s average life expectancy at birth is 80.1 years for females and 73.4 years for males. Sri Lanka’s expected years of schooling is 14 years, employment to population ratio (15 years and older) is 50.2 percent, and per capita Carbon dioxide emissions is 1.0 tonnes. It states that 34.1 percent of the country’s population uses the Internet. Compared to Sri Lanka, other South Asian countries are lagging behind in the index. Neighbouring India has been ranked at 129, Bhutan at 134, Bangladesh at 135, Nepal at 147, Pakistan at 152, Myanmar at 145, and Afghanistan at 170 in the latest HDI.

Norway, Switzerland, Ireland, Germany, Hong Kong and China (SAR) are the top five countries with the highest human development respectively.

According to the report’s data, the income share held by Sri Lanka’s poorest 40 percent is 17.7 percent, while the income share held by the country’s richest 10 percent is 32.9 percent.

In the sector-wise analysis, the report stated that the current health expenditure of Sri Lanka is 3.9 percent of its GDP and the Government expenditure on education is 2.8 percent of GDP. The infant mortality rate is 7.5 deaths per 1,000 live births.

The adult literacy rate (15 years and older) is 91.9 percent.

Sri Lanka’s annual number of live births to adolescent women (15-19 years) is 20.9 per 1,000 adolescent women. The female share of employment in senior and middle management is 25.6 percent in Sri Lanka.

Moreover, the mobile phone subscriptions in Sri Lanka exceed the total population and this figure is 115.1 per 100 people.

This year’s Human Development Report is titled “Beyond income, beyond averages, beyond today: inequalities in human development in the 21st Century”.

(Source: Daily News – By Disna Mudalige)