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HDI surprisingly similar to GDP/capita

Human Development Index HDI is advanced as being a better indicator than “GDP per capita” in measuring the progress of Nations. HDI is calculated by UNDP from indicators for health, education and living standard (income/person). The methodology is quite complicated but it well documented http://hdr.undp.org/en/statistics/hdi/

BUT look at a plot of the correlation between HDI and GDP/capita or all countries in Gapminder World www.bit.ly/XxQw0B You will be surprised! There is today a very strong correlation between rising GDP/capita. If you exclude 6 countries on the right side of the strong correlation that have higher GDP/capita than HDI due to oil or diamonds; and if you exclude 6 former Soviet Republics with collapsed economy but still high literacy rate on the left side of the correlation; you will find that the GDP/capita and the value on Human Development Index follow each other very closely from the worst-off country Congo to the best-off country Norway. The reason seems to be that nations today are surprisingly capable in converting the available national income (measured as GDP/capita) into a longer lifespan for the people (measured as Life expectancy at birth) and into access to education (measured by mean of years of schooling for adults aged 25 years and expected years of schooling for children of school entering age).  But the reason may also be that nations today are very good at converting improved health and education into economic growth. Most probably the causality goes in both directions.

In conclusions:  If you want better health and education fix economic growth. If you want faster economic growth provide better education and health service. GDP/capita appears to be as good a measure of progress of nations as are HDI.

Hans Rosling

Tanzania: Fast drop in child mortality!

UN just published estimates for child mortality in all countries in 2010!  http://www.unicef.org/media/files/Child_Mortality_Report_2011_Final.pdf

It is a well documented compilation that brings much good news! Child mortality counted as deaths < 5 years per 1000 born has dropped in Tanzania that had:

1995:  155 deaths per 1000 born (Sweden had this rate 1896)

2010:   76 deaths per 1000 born (Sweden had this rate 1928)

This means that what Tanzania achieved in the last 15 years took Sweden 32 years to do! Tanzania improves with twice the speed of historical Sweden. They are catching-up. Tanzania´s average annual rate of reduction of child mortality over the last 15 years was 4.6 %. The Millennium Development Goal rate set by UN is an annual average rate of reduction of 4.3%!  Tanzania is moving faster! But during the 5 years between 1990 and 1995 the child mortality in Tanzania was stagnant at about 155 per 1000 born. Some still measure MDG rate from 1990 and says Tanzania is not moving fast enough. But this is ridiculous (sorry for hard but true word). The MDG´s were set in 2000 and the use of a retrospective starting point makes no sense 10 years later. It is the speed of progress that matter, not the distance covered from a point back in history! Honor to Tanzania that is moving faster than MDG rate.  Honor also to those that assisted in this magnificent achievement in reducing child mortality!

Hans Rosling

Selling sex without HIV in Pakistan

People ask me: DO you believe UNAIDS data saying that less than 0.1 % of adults in Pakistan  are HIV infected? YES I DO, the estimate is not based on reporting but on surveys. The uncertainty is wide, yet all surveys indicate that only a fraction of one percent of adults live with HIV in Pakistan. See Gapminder World www.bit.ly/mSuVw6

Next question is: SO because it is a Muslim country you don´t think there are sex workers in Pakistan ?  Now I can answer because I read a new excellent thesis; “Poverty of Opportunity for Women Selling Sex in Lahore, Pakistan”, by Mohsin Saeed Khan. He concludes that a substantial number of women do sell sex in Pakistan. Through respectful interviews and yet with the highest scientific rigor Dr Khan reveals an emerging pattern with several different ways in which sex is sold. Ranging from brothels to selling in your own home. All for the same sad reasons as in other parts of the world.  Khan surprisingly finds that most of the women selling sex in Lahore are married. He explains how (1) an increasing and by now relatively high condom use and (2) a relatively low number of returning clients have limited the spread of HIV. This thesis shows how HIV prevention and empowerment of poor women needs to be based on different types of local realities that can be studied and understood anywhere in the world. http://publications.ki.se/jspui/handle/10616/40537

Hans Rosling

CUBA – poorest of the healthy

A decade ago I lectured to the staff of the Ministry of Health in Cuba. After my talk the Minister happily said, this graphs showed that Cuba is the healthiest of the poor countries! On the way out a young staff member whispered in my ear:

– He is wrong, Cuba is just the poorest of the healthy countries.

Gapminder World describes that both were right, www.bit.ly/l02EOP People in Cuba has the same life span  as Chile, Portugal, South Korea, Greece and USA. But Cuba has the lowest income per person of all these countries with Life Expectancy of 79 years! Is Cuba´s upper left position due to good health policy or bad economic policy?  I would say YES due to both reason, and now it seems as the new leader is fed up with the bad economic policy and starts to allows some privet enterprises in Cuba. http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/americas/05/17/cuba.private.businesses/index.html

Hans Rosling

IRELAND REMAINS AHEAD OF UK!

Look at the great catch up of Ireland since the terrible famine in 1849. That year the lifespan in Ireland, 20 years, was estimated to half of that in UK! And the estimated income per person in Ireland was only 1/3 of that in UK.

But Ireland has cached up and overtaken the former colonial ruler in both income and health. Note in Gapminder World that Ireland in spite of the economic downturn still has a higher average income per person than UK www.bit.ly/imxm1V . The latest data from IMF displayed in Google public data explorer confirms that Ireland still remains ahead of UK in GDP per capita when comaprision is made in purchasing power parity.
http://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=k3s92bru78li6_&ctype=l&strail=false&nselm=h&met_y=ppppc&scale_y=lin&ind_y=false&rdim=country_group&idim=country:IE:GB&tstart=315532800000&tunit=Y&tlen=36&hl=en&dl=en&uniSize=0.035&iconSize=0.5

Hans Rosling

Big oil reserves + Democracy = False

The five countries with the highest oil reserves per person  are UAE, Qatar, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia & Libya.  All five score very low, from -7 to -10, in democracy (the scores run from +10 to -10)!  Of these five countries Libya has the lowest amounts of oil reserves per person; and therefore perhaps the highest chance for democracy? www.bit.ly/iLTom2

Hans Rosling 20 May 2011

Barbados – Haiti: 15 -1

Michel Martelly was sworn in Saturday as the new president of Haiti. He face a relay tough task!

Since 1950 GDP/capita has not grown at all, it remains around 1 thousand dollar per person in Haiti. In spite of this Life expectancy has increased from 36 to 61 years. So with money sent home from relatives in US and modern health technology people do get more health for the buck! But so far they have got no more bucks.

In contrast, the close by Caribbean Island nation Barbados (where a dominant part of the population also are of African origin) increased GDP/capita 5-fold to 15 thousand dollar per person in Barbados. Barbados increase Life expectancy to 78 years, just one year less than USA! In fact blacks in Barbados live longer than blacks in USA.

Look at the chockingly different trails in income and health of Barbados and Haiti in Gapminder World www.bit.ly/l6qlRc

Ask your teacher or find out yourself; Why are the outcome for populations of African origin so different in different nations in the Americas!

Azerbaijan, better than ever!

Azerbaijan not only won the European Song Contest 2011, it also has among the highest oil and natural gas production per person in the world www.bit.ly/iNksgW

Not only has the income per person steadily imporved since 1995, but so has also the mean number of years in school for women and Azerbadjan has today higher GDP/ capita than the two neigbouring Caucasian nations. www.bit.ly/iFAigh

So given the modest developemtn level at the independence from Soviet in 1991, Azerbaijan is now a successful European country. But is this muslim country really European?

Yes it is European, because Azerbaijan is a member of the Councel of Europa   http://www.coe.int/aboutcoe/index.asp?page=47pays1europe&l=en , it is a member of the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) where Azerbaijan ranks 37 of 53 members http://www.uefa.com/memberassociations/uefarankings/country/index.html and as of tonight Azerbaijan is the winner of the Eurovision Song Contest. Interestingly wealth and health of country has no importance for the chance of winning the Song Contest. Winning must be interpreted as a cultural and political expression of being part of Europe. Look at the GDP/capita (6000 to 48 000 dollar)  and Life Expectancy (67 to 81 years) of the last 10 winners of Eurovision Song Contest in Gapminder World: www.bit.ly/jIlz5u

Hans Rosling

BRIC like Africa

The economic growth in Africa is more than 5% per year and that is faster than world average. Companies in emerging economies (=middle income countries or BRIC) are more positive to invest in Africa than are those i high income countries says report from World Economic Forum http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_GCR_Africa_Report_2011.pdf

Look how so many countries in Africa in this century have replaced th stagnation in the 1990íes with fast economic growth www.bit.ly/iTjffl

Fast economic growth in East Africa!

Today at the airport in Stockholm I met a happy Swedish couple flying out to their new investment abroad! They had renovated and opened a hotel on “Ihla”,  the historic capital in northern Mocambique. Obviously done the right thing to do. International Monetary Fund, IMF tell us that there is now fast economic growth throughout East Africa. Look at the data and forecast of GDP/capita in Public Data Explorer http://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=k3s92bru78li6_&ctype=l&strail=false&nselm=h&met_y=ppppc&scale_y=lin&ind_y=false&rdim=country_group&idim=country:KE:RW:MZ:TZ&tstart=315532800000&tunit=Y&tlen=36&hl=en&dl=en&iconSize=0.5&uniSize=0.035

Ivory Coast dropped, Egypt rised GDP/c

35 years ago Ivory Coast and Egypt had the same GDP/capita and the same Life Expectancy. In  this year of revolution Egyptians have 4 fold better GDP/capita and live more than 10 years longer than Ivorians. So Egypt did progress in health and economy during Mubarak, but people also want democracy. Ivory Coast today had its elected president swarm in but he has to face a much worse challenge in Ivory Coast that the upcoming elected president will have in Egypt. Look at this graph www.bit.ly/lq03kk

Hans Rosling

Bangladesh has outdone Pakistan!

At independence in 1972 people in Bangladesh lived on average 1o years shorter than in Pakistan, whereas both countries had very large families, 7 children per women.

Bangladesh has in the last 4 decades increased the life span from 44 to 67 years; now on par with Pakistan. In the change to small families Bangladesh has dropped from 7 to 2.3 children per women, whereas Pakistan still has almost 4 children per women. Considering that Pakistan has almost twice the GDP/capita compared to Bangladesh, the county has under-performed in health and family welfare. Click on link to look at the graph showing family size and life span in Gapminder World where I have colored the country bubbles by “% of GDP spent on Military”. Bangladesh spends around 1 % through the last decades, whereas Pakistan is slowly coming down from 7 % ( put cursor on bubble an look in upper right corner) to now 3.3 % !  www.bit.ly/joKHtJ Seems wise to let military spending drop further and increase investments in women and children!

Hans Rosling

Pakistan military budget is 10 x health budget !

i Just became aware of how very exceptional the BUDGET of the Pakistan government is. The government spend 4% of GDP on military, as high as the much richer USA do!! In % of GDP USA and Pakistan have among the highest military spendings in the world!

But in health the countries are very different! US spends 15% of GDP on Health (highest in the world) and of this the US government spends 7% of GDP on health; whereas Pakistani health spending is only 2% the most dramatic is that the government contribution is less than one fifth of that, meaning 0.4% of GDP.

THE PAKISTANI GOVERNMENT SPENDS TEN TIMES MORE ON MILITARY THAN ON HEALTH! THAT IS A REMARKABLE PROPORTION! See the relations here in Gapminder World where countries are bubbles, vertical is health spending , horizontal military spending and color percent of health spending from government, blue represents the lowest range and brown the highest range of government proportion in health spending. www.bit.ly/iKRzKL

 

 

Reducing deaths yielded fewer kids!

Click to see Gapminder World showing number of children per women (vertical) and child mortality (horizontally) for the countries of the world in 1960. (each bubble=one country). Back in 1960 there was a developing world with many children and high child mortality!

Click Play and watch how child mortality falls and then how also number of children falls http://www.bit.ly/lnwfQk

Today most countries are down in the small family low child mortality corner! And therefore the “Peak Number of Children” has now been reached, as the countries with less than 2 children per women compensate for the one of seven billion people that still have more than 3 chiuldren per women.

The World has reached Peak Number of Children!

BREAKING NEWS FROM UN POPULATION DIVISION

world population continueS to grow, but the number of children in the world has now reached its peak.

In 1960 we were 1 billion children below 15 years of age and we were 35% of the world population.

Now there are 1,9 billion children  in the world, but they are but 27% of world population.

In 2050 there will still be an estimated 1.9 billion kids, but they will be only 20% of world population.

The reason, 40% of world population has less than 2 children per women and thus compensationg for the 18% that get more than 3 children per women.

http://esa.un.org/unpd/wpp/unpp/p2k0data.asp

CLICK DETAILED INDICATORS > POPULATION 0-14 YEARS > DISPLAY

UN: we will be 9 b 2050 & 10 b 2100

Great day for the curious! UN releases World Population Prospects 2010 http://esa.un.org/unpd/wpp/index.htm

No more grouping of countries into developed and developing! Instead countries are grouped based on fertility into low (ex. Vietnam, Iran & Brazil), intermediate (ex Egypt, USA, Bangladesh, South Africa), and high fertility (ex Pakistan, Nigeria, Congo & Bolivia) !

The high-fertility countries (> 3 kids per women) are mainly in Africa and only have 18% of the world population = 1.2 billion people. They are expected to tripple their population to 3,6 billion this century! The Low fertility countries are 40% of world population and will decrease their population and the intermediate are 40% will level of at 2050.

The peak size of the world population, therefore,  depends on how fast peace, school, basic health care, poverty alleviation and family planning will become accessible to all in Africa and a few other countries like Yemen, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Bangladesh is better than we show!

Gapminder World displays the latest datasets available for different aspects of the progress of countries. The data for the last years are mostly estimations based on extrapolations from survey made in earlier years. When new survey results appear they should more or less correspond to the estimations if countries progress as expected.
BUT sometimes the progress is faster than expected. This is the case with the FALL OF MATERNAL MORTALITY IN BANGLADESH. A recent well-done survey in 2010 reveals that maternal mortality has been falling fast in Bangladesh during the last 10 years. http://www.icddrb.org/uploads/files/BMMS_2010_Summary_FINAL.pdf
It is now down to 143 deaths per 100 000 births, almost half of what it was 10 years earlier. We show the latest international estimates in Gapminder World that is 330 per 100 000. But reality is that Bangladesh has progressed faster www.bit.ly/iEjoIr
How? A combination of government investments, aid and more capable health staff and people is behind this success story. And dense population makes it much easier to provide services to all. It seems as Bangladesh is just about to make it with flying colors to the modern world.

Education data 1970-2009

The Institute of Health Metrics have estimated mean number of years in school for men and women in different age-groups for almost all countries.
The methods used for these estimates are well-documented. This data reveal that there is no correlation between educations level in counatries and the % of adults living with HIV www.bit.ly/aI39Ql
You find these indicators in Gapminder World under Category Education and subcategory Mean years at School!

Sweden peaked in teen births 1966

Gapminder World now has an updated indicator for Teen Fertility Rate (births per 1,000 women ages 15-19). We have added time series for Sweden since 1800 and for US since 1940. Click the link and see the interesting peak in births among teenagers in Sweden in 1966. The drop coincide with the arrival of the pill.
www.bit.ly/dpWo2V