Under the patronage of H.R.H. Princess Basma Bint Talal, the Honorary Human Development Ambassador for UNDP, the United Nations Development Programme in Jordan launched today the Human Development Report 2006 (HDR)
The Report was launched in a public ceremony attended by government officials, the diplomatic community, representatives of upper and lower house of parliament, civil society, private sector, academia and research centers and media. The ceremony included a Key note statement by H.R.H. Princess Basma and speeches by H.E. Minister of Water and Irrigation, Mr. Thafer Al Alem, Secretary General of Ministry of Planning and International Cooperation, Mr. Maher Madadhah on behalf of the Minister and UNDP Resident Representative, a.i., Ms. Mona K. Hider.
Focusing on the theme of the Report "Beyond scarcity: Power, poverty and the global water crisis", UNDP's 17th annual HDR puts special emphasis on deprivation in access to water and sanitation, and considers it as one of the greatest human development challenges of the early 21st century.
That deprivation can be measured by statistics, but behind the numbers are the human faces of the millions of people denied an opportunity to realize their potential. Water, the stuff of life and a basic human right, is at the heart of a daily crisis faced by countless millions of the world’s most vulnerable people – a crisis that threatens life and destroys livelihoods on a devastating scale.
The Report recommends that in addition to creating a Global Action Plan, the following three foundations are crucial for success: Make water a human right, and mean it; draw up national strategies for water and sanitation; and increase international aid.
One particular feature of HDRs which attracts attention each year is the ranking of countries according to the Human Development Index (HDI). Derived from three socio-economic factors –life expectancy, adult literacy and per capita income- the HDI (on a scale from 0 -1) is a measure of the quality of life in each country.
All countries included in the HDI are classified into three clusters by achievement in human development: high human development (with an HDI of 0.800 or above), medium human development (0.500-0.799) and low human development (less than 0.500).
The 2006 Report HDI ranks 177 countries based on the 2004 figures, the most recent year of available data. Jordan had shown a steady improvement in the global human development reports. Its HDI has progressed slightly this year from 0.753 to 0.760 ranking 86 in comparison to 90 of last year.
Currently, Jordan’s HDI of 0.760 is above the regional average, 0.680 for Arab States. Furthermore, Jordan’s HDI value outperforms the average of countries at similar levels of development, 0.679 for all developing countries and 0.701 for medium human development countries.
The report also includes the Human Poverty Index (HPI), which focuses on the proportion of people below a threshold level in basic dimensions of human development. The HPI ranking for Jordan is still 11 among 102 countries as last year.
The Report's Gender Development Index (GDI) ranks Jordan 69 among 136 countries. The GDI is the gender-related development index using the same indicators as the HDI but also capturing inequalities in achievement between women and men.
While in connection to the theme of the Report of this year, the statistics on Jordanians access to water and sanitation show that 97% of the population of Jordan has sustainable access to an improved water source, and 93% has sustainable access to improved sanitation. |