Ethiopia

This year’s HDI, which refers to 2004, highlights the very largegaps in well-being and life chances that continue to divide ourincreasingly interconnected world. By looking at some of the mostfundamental aspects of people’s lives and opportunities it providesa much more complete picture of a country’s development than otherindicators, such as GDP per capita. Figure 1 illustrates thatcountries on the same level of HDI as Ethiopia can have very differentlevels of income and life expectancy.

Human development index trends tell an important story. Sincethe mid-1970s almost all regions have been progressively increasingtheir HDI score (Figure 2). East Asia and South Asia have acceleratedprogress since 1990. Central and Eastern Europe and the Commonwealthof Independent States (CIS), following a catastrophic declinein the first half of the 1990s, has also recovered to the level before the reversal. The major exception isSub-Saharan Africa. Since 1990 it has stagnated, partly becauseof economic reversal but principally because of the catastrophiceffect of HIV/AIDS on life expectancy.

The HDI measures the average progress of a country in humandevelopment. The Human Poverty Index for developing countries(HPI-1), focuses on the proportion of people below a thresholdlevel in the same dimensions of human development as the humandevelopment index - living a long and healthy life, having accessto education, and a decent standard of living. By looking beyondincome deprivation, the HPI-1 represents a multi-dimensional alternativeto the $1 a day (PPP US$) poverty measure.

The HPI-1 value for Ethiopia, 55.3, ranks 98th among 102 developingcountries for which the index has been calculated.

The HPI-1 measures severe deprivation in health by the proportionof people who are not expected to survive age 40. Education ismeasured by the adult illiteracy rate. And a decent standard ofliving is measured by the unweighted average of people withoutaccess to an improved water source and the proportion of childrenunder age 5 who are underweight for their age. Table 2 shows thevalues for these variables for Ethiopia and compares them to othercountries.