The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has released the 20th Human Development Report.
The 2010 report–The real wealth of nations: pathways to human development–was launched in New York on 4 November 2010 by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, UNDP Administrator Helen Clark and Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen.
The report found most developing countries made dramatic yet often underestimated progress in health, education and basic living standards in recent decades, with many of the poorest countries posting the greatest gains.
Yet wide inequalities still exist within and among countries as do deep disparities between women and men on a wide range of development indicators.
The prevalence of extreme multi-dimensional poverty in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa was also highlighted in the report.
The report found the average life expectancy worldwide had jumped to 70 years in 2010. School enrolment through high school has reached 70 per cent of eligible students while the average per capita income has doubled to US$10,000.
The report's Human Development Index found countries that have improved most since 1970 to include Oman, China, Nepal, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, Laos, Tunisia, South Korea, Algeria and Morocco.
Countries that ranked the highest in terms of overall wellbeing were Norway, Australia, New Zealand, the United States, Ireland, Liechtenstein, the Netherlands, Canada, Sweden and Germany.
In certain African nations–the Democratic Republic of the Congo, South Africa, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Lesotho and Swaziland–life expectancy decreased because of the AIDS epidemic or war, the report found.
Zimbabwe was at the bottom of the report's Human Development Index. Once one of the African continent's most promising nations, Zimbabwe now has the lowest per capita income of the countries and territories for which the United Nations has data.
More information
UNDP's Human Development Report [external website]