A new United Nations report stated that since 2020, nine out of 10 countries have slid backwards with the blame on Covid-19, the war in Ukraine and the impact of climate change.
It explained that decades of progress in terms of life expectancy, education and economic prosperity have declined since the pandemic.
The Human Development Index was launched in 1990 by the UN in an effort to look beyond GDP as a measure of well-being of individuals.
Switzerland sits at the top of the index this year with a life expectancy of 84 years, an average of 16.5 years spent in education and median salary of $66,000.
At the bottom of the index is South Sudan where life expectancy is 55, people spend just 5.5 years in school on average and earn $768 a year.
Setbacks in a majority of the 191 countries included in the index, especially in life expectancy, have taken development levels backwards , reversing a 30-year trend, the report stated.
Two-thirds of rich countries rebounded last year while most others continued to decline.
This year’s index is based on data from 2021. “But the outlook for 2022 is grim,” one of Index authors,Achim Steiner said. He added that more than 80 countries are facing problems paying off their national debt.
