The U.N.s annual Human Development Report of the global rich and poor showed stark differences Thursday as AIDS pushes African nations further into misery while most of the rest of the world creeps toward higher development, reports the World Bank press review.
Of the 177 nations included in the U.N. Development Index, African nations occupied all but three of the last 30 places. After decades of edging forward in step with other regions, 13 African nations have seen their development rating decline since 1990.
– The picture that emerges is increasingly one of two very different groups of countries: those that have benefited from development and those that have been left behind, the report said.
Last on the list for the seventh year running was Sierra Leone, which is still struggling to recover from years of civil war. Just above it were the West African neighbors Niger, Burkina Faso and Mali. The overall ranking takes in life expectancy, income and educational attainment.
The report blamed AIDS for pushing down African development levels. – AIDS is reversing the hard-won gains of recent decades, Elizabeth Lwanga, deputy director of the UNDPs Africa office, said at the international AIDS conference in Bangkok, Thailand.
Mark Malloch Brown, administrator of the U.N. Development Program, said AIDS was not the only factor holding Africa back. He called for Europe and North America to open their markets to African agricultural exports and said richer nations should invest more in health, education and transport networks in Africa.
The report said recognition of minority rights increases national unity, rather than weakening it, and pointed out there was little evidence that ethnic differences are themselves a cause of violent conflict.
The U.N. report also looked at the role of women in society. It cited Saudi Arabia, Oman, Pakistan, Yemen and India for “dramatic disparities between their level of human development and gender equality.”
The Financial Times writes that countries must recognize and embrace cultural diversity, in their own minorities and in immigrant communities, if they are to develop in a globalizing world, the report said.
Societies that try to repress cultural identity or discriminate against certain groups lay the groundwork for instability and conflict, and argues that cultural liberty is as much a necessity for human development as democracy and economic opportunity.
The report advocates federal political systems, acceptance of multiculturalism, and affirmative action for disadvantaged groups. However, it says cultural differences cannot be used to deny core non-negotiable values such as human rights, rule of law, gender equality and tolerance.
Diversity does not hold back economic growth, democracy or national unity, the report maintains, citing India – with more than 600 language groups – as a prime example. Indias citizens are more deeply committed to their country and to democracy than many long-established western democracies, surveys show.
The report, which monitors development indicators around the world, also repeated its warning from last year that grim news from Africa means the “millennium targets” set by the United Nations to reduce global poverty by 2015 would not be met without radical changes in policies.
The report concluded that halving poverty in Africa, even in the next 150 years, will not be possible if present trends continue. Last years Human Development Report predicted extreme poverty in Africa could be cut in half by 2147 – much later than in other areas of the world.
– Now we have had to back off even that estimate because poverty is at the moment growing, Mark Malloch Brown, administrator of the United Nations Development Programme, told a news conference in Brussels to launch the report.
– If present trends continued, poverty in Africa would never halve, he said.
Kilde: www.worldbank.org
