Bahamas scores ‘very high’ on UNDP’s human development index

The Bahamas received a “very high” score in the United Nations Development Programme’s (UNDP) 2020 Human Development Report, which placed it at 58 out of 189 countries and territories.

The report gave The Bahamas a human development index (HDI) score of 0.814 for 2019.

The UNDP noted that between 2000 and 2019, The Bahamas’ HDI value increased from 0.797 to 0.814, an increase of 2.1 percent.

“The Bahamas’ 2019 HDI of 0.814 is below the average of 0.898 for countries in the very high human development group and above the average of 0.766 for countries in Latin America and the Caribbean,” the report notes.

“From Latin America and the Caribbean, The Bahamas is compared with Belize and Trinidad and Tobago, which have HDIs ranked 110 and 67, respectively.”

This year marks the 30th anniversary of the first Human Development Report and of the introduction of the Human Development Index, the UNDP stated in a press statement.

The aim of the HDI is to “steer discussions about development progress away from GDP” and toward that which impacts the lives of everyday people, noted the UNDP.

“Between 1990 and 2019, The Bahamas’ life expectancy at birth increased by 3.7 years; its mean years of schooling increased by 0.5 years and expected years of schooling increased by 0.8 years. The Bahamas’ GNI (gross national income) per capita decreased by about 8.4 percent between 1990 and 2019,” the report highlighted.

It continued, “The Bahamas has a GII (gender inequality index) value of 0.341, ranking it 77 out of 162 countries in the 2019 index. In The Bahamas, 21.8 percent of parliamentary seats are held by women and 88 percent of adult women have reached at least a secondary level of education, compared to 91 percent of their male counterparts. For every 100,000 live births, 70 women die from pregnancy-related causes; and the adolescent birth rate is 30 births per 1,000 women aged 15-19. Female participation in the labor market is 68.1 percent compared to 81.6 for men.”

The UNDP noted that this year’s scores and rankings do not depict the state of human development since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. It noted that data reflecting changes caused by the pandemic and its socioeconomic fallout in 2020 will be available in 2021.

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