Hassoun
November 11th, 2006, 05:22 PM
Lebanon's UN rating for living standards improved
Saturday, 11 November, 2006 @ 9:03 AM
http://yalibnan.com/site/archives/2006/11/img/logo_UNDP.jpg
Beirut- The United Nations Development Program has said that Lebanon's living standards have improved since 2005.
According to the U.N.'s 2006 Human Development Index (HDI), Lebanon has moved up three places since last year, rating 78th out of 177 countries.
HDI, which was founded in 1990, is a comparative measure of life expectancy, literacy, education and living standards for countries.
The report was presented Thursday during a UNDP press conference at the U.N. headquarters in downtown Beirut.
Lebanon ranked 82nd in 2000 and 81st in 2005.
The report looks at 175 U.N. member countries, including the Palestinian territories. It says 2,6-billion people do not have access to adequate sanitation.
South Africa was rated 120 out of 177 countries, behind the Seychelles, Libya and Mauritius, but ahead of other sub-Saharan countries.
The top six countries were Norway, Iceland, Australia, Luxembourg, Canada and Sweden. The last three countries were Burkina Faso, Sierra Leone and Niger.
Some of Lebanon's data showed a marked improvement. Among 102 countries ranked according to the number of people living in poverty, it was listed 20th, ahead of Turkey and Brazil.
Based on the percentage of underweight children, a determinant of malnutrition, Lebanon ranked 7th best out of some 134 countries.
The 2006 report looks at the importance of increasing access to water for citizens and whether that has positive spinoffs to countries' economic growth.
Lebanon's water expert Tarek Majzoub, who attended the press conference along with Health Minister Mohammed Khalifeh, said that Arab countries, which lie in the world's most arid environments, will be gravely hit by climate changes in the near future.
UNDP resident representative Mona Hammam warned that the access of water in the Middle East was not just a domestic issue but already the cause of rising cross-border tensions.
"Combating the current water crisis is one of the biggest challenges facing human development in the 21st century," Hamman said.
She said that Israel, the Occupied Territories and Jordan in particular face a fight for the waters of the Jordan River.
Kuwait had the highest HDI listing of all Arab and Islamic states at 33rd. Bahrain (39), Qatar (46) and the United Arab Emirates (49) have all moved up from previous rankings.
While states like the UAE, Kuwait and Qatar are amongst the richest in the world in terms of GDP per-capita, their HDI ranking places them among much poorer states like Mexico, Romania and Argentina.
The UNDP report says this is because Gulf economies are heavily dependent on oil revenues, whereas the HDI also takes other aspects of economic and social data into account.
How will Lebanon rank next year?
Commenting on the ranking one local observer told ya Libnan" it will be interesting to find out what will the ranking be for 2007, since the summer war greatly affected the living standards of the Lebanese". Over 1 million Lebanese were made homeless as a result of the war and lived like refugees in their own country.
There is no reason for Lebanon not to be in the top 25 , but the political instability prevents this from happening. Lebanon used to be called the land of 'Milk and Honey', but destabilizing wars like the 1975 -1990 civil war and the last war between Hezbollah and Israel had very negative effects on the living standards.
Source: Ya Libnan, Naharnet
Saturday, 11 November, 2006 @ 9:03 AM
http://yalibnan.com/site/archives/2006/11/img/logo_UNDP.jpg
Beirut- The United Nations Development Program has said that Lebanon's living standards have improved since 2005.
According to the U.N.'s 2006 Human Development Index (HDI), Lebanon has moved up three places since last year, rating 78th out of 177 countries.
HDI, which was founded in 1990, is a comparative measure of life expectancy, literacy, education and living standards for countries.
The report was presented Thursday during a UNDP press conference at the U.N. headquarters in downtown Beirut.
Lebanon ranked 82nd in 2000 and 81st in 2005.
The report looks at 175 U.N. member countries, including the Palestinian territories. It says 2,6-billion people do not have access to adequate sanitation.
South Africa was rated 120 out of 177 countries, behind the Seychelles, Libya and Mauritius, but ahead of other sub-Saharan countries.
The top six countries were Norway, Iceland, Australia, Luxembourg, Canada and Sweden. The last three countries were Burkina Faso, Sierra Leone and Niger.
Some of Lebanon's data showed a marked improvement. Among 102 countries ranked according to the number of people living in poverty, it was listed 20th, ahead of Turkey and Brazil.
Based on the percentage of underweight children, a determinant of malnutrition, Lebanon ranked 7th best out of some 134 countries.
The 2006 report looks at the importance of increasing access to water for citizens and whether that has positive spinoffs to countries' economic growth.
Lebanon's water expert Tarek Majzoub, who attended the press conference along with Health Minister Mohammed Khalifeh, said that Arab countries, which lie in the world's most arid environments, will be gravely hit by climate changes in the near future.
UNDP resident representative Mona Hammam warned that the access of water in the Middle East was not just a domestic issue but already the cause of rising cross-border tensions.
"Combating the current water crisis is one of the biggest challenges facing human development in the 21st century," Hamman said.
She said that Israel, the Occupied Territories and Jordan in particular face a fight for the waters of the Jordan River.
Kuwait had the highest HDI listing of all Arab and Islamic states at 33rd. Bahrain (39), Qatar (46) and the United Arab Emirates (49) have all moved up from previous rankings.
While states like the UAE, Kuwait and Qatar are amongst the richest in the world in terms of GDP per-capita, their HDI ranking places them among much poorer states like Mexico, Romania and Argentina.
The UNDP report says this is because Gulf economies are heavily dependent on oil revenues, whereas the HDI also takes other aspects of economic and social data into account.
How will Lebanon rank next year?
Commenting on the ranking one local observer told ya Libnan" it will be interesting to find out what will the ranking be for 2007, since the summer war greatly affected the living standards of the Lebanese". Over 1 million Lebanese were made homeless as a result of the war and lived like refugees in their own country.
There is no reason for Lebanon not to be in the top 25 , but the political instability prevents this from happening. Lebanon used to be called the land of 'Milk and Honey', but destabilizing wars like the 1975 -1990 civil war and the last war between Hezbollah and Israel had very negative effects on the living standards.
Source: Ya Libnan, Naharnet