Zimbabwe has scored a 13.2 percent increase in overall human development through the recently launched United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) 2019, a report on Human Development which focuses on growing inequalities as the main development challenge to overcome has revealed.
Ranked at number 150 out of 189 countries, where the Human Development Index (HDI) has been computed, Zimbabwe has improved from the 2017 rank of 153.
According to the report, this progress has been primarily due to cumulative dividends from investment in social sectors over the period.
Over the same time frame, life expectancy at birth increased by 3.1 years and mean years of schooling increased by 3.8 years.
Income per capita, on the other hand, decreased by 1.2 percent in that same period.
Although human development percentage has risen UNDP Administrator, Achim Steiner said new imbalances are becoming more pronounced in tertiary education.
“New inequalities are becoming more pronounced, particularly around tertiary education, and the seismic effects of technology and the climate crisis. This is the new face of inequality and as this Human Development Report sets out, inequality is not beyond solutions,” said Steiner.
He added, “Zimbabwe, like many African countries, finds herself at crossroads, facing the dual challenge of ensuring that those furthest behind make progress with the basics, while paving the way for those further ahead to keep pace with the emerging requirements of today’s world.”
“What used to be ‘nice-to-haves’, like going to university or access to broadband, are increasingly important for success, but left only with the basics, many people find the rungs knocked out of their ladder to the future,” said UNDP’s Pedro Conceição, Director of the
HDR team that compiled the report.
