The UNDP has released its Human Development Report for 2010, 20 years after the release of the first Human Development Report. Considerable progress has been made in many countries, but little or negative progress has been made in others. Health advances have been large but are slowing. Substantial progress in education has been made. There has been mixed progress in income levels. Economic growth has been very uneven.
The report makes a number of interesting observations. The relationship between economic growth and improvements in health and education is weak in countries that rate low and medium on the Human Development Index (HDI). Attempts to transplant policy solutions across countries with different conditions often fail: policies must be grounded in the prevailing institutional setting to bring about change. It is possible for a country to have a high HDI but be unsustainable, undemocratic and unequal.
Only three countries have a lower HDI today than 40 years ago: the Democratic Republic of Congo (which has been the subject of many years of brutal civil war), Zambia (which has been devastated by AIDS), and Zimbabwe (the economy of which has been devastated by poor government). The biggest improvers include China, Indonesia, South Korea, Nepal, Oman and Tunisia.