Cuba
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The Human Development Index - going beyond income


Each year since 1990 the Human Development Report has published the human development index (HDI) that looks beyond GDP to a broader definition of well-being. The HDI provides a composite measure of three dimensions of human development: living a long and healthy life (measured by life expectancy), being educated (measured by adult literacy and enrolment at the primary, secondary and tertiary level) and having a decent standard of living (measured by purchasing power parity, PPP, income). The index is not in any sense a comprehensive measure of human development. It does not, for example, include important indicators such as inequality and difficult to measure indicators like respect for human rights and political freedoms. What it does provide is a broadened prism for viewing human progress and the complex relationship between income and well-being.

The HDI for Cuba is 0.826, which gives Cuba a rank of 50th out of 177 countries with data (Table 1).


Table 1: Cuba’s human development index 2004
HDI value Life expectancy at birth
(years)		 Adult literacy rate
(% ages 15 and older)		 Combined primary, secondary and tertiary gross enrolment ratio
(%)
1. Norway (0.965)
48. Costa Rica (0.841)
49. United Arab Emirates (0.839)
50. Cuba (0.826)
51. Saint Kitts and Nevis (0.825)
52. Bahamas (0.825)
1. Japan (82.2)
27. Chile (78.1)
28. Ireland (77.9)
29. Cuba (77.6)
30. United States (77.5)
31. Portugal (77.5)
1. Georgia (100.0)
2. Slovakia (100.0)
3. Cuba (99.8)
4. Estonia (99.8)
5. Latvia (99.7)
6. Lithuania (99.6)
1. Australia (113.2)
51. Belize (81.0)
52. Bulgaria (80.9)
53. Cuba (80.1)
54. Tonga (80.0)
55. Panama (79.7)
177. Niger (0.311) 177. Swaziland (31.3) 128. Mali (19.0) 172. Niger (21.5)


Human poverty in Cuba: focusing on the most deprived in multiple dimensions of poverty


The HDI measures the average progress of a country in human development. The Human Poverty Index for developing countries (HPI-1), focuses on the proportion of people below a threshold level in the same dimensions of human development as the human development index - living a long and healthy life, having access to education, and a decent standard of living. By looking beyond income deprivation, the HPI-1 represents a multi-dimensional alternative to the $1 a day (PPP US$) poverty measure.

The HPI-1 value for Cuba, 4.7, ranks 6th among 102 developing countries for which the index has been calculated.

The HPI-1 measures severe deprivation in health by the proportion of people who are not expected to survive age 40. Education is measured by the adult illiteracy rate. And a decent standard of living is measured by the unweighted average of people without access to an improved water source and the proportion of children under age 5 who are underweight for their age. Table 2 shows the values for these variables for Cuba and compares them to other countries.


Table 2: Selected indicators of human poverty for Cuba
Human Poverty Index
(HPI-1)
2004		 Probability of not surviving past age 40
(%)
2004		 Adult illiteracy rate
(%ages 15 and older)
2004		 People without access to an improved water source
(%)
2004		 Children underweight for age
(% ages 0-5)
2004
1. Uruguay (3.3)
4. Costa Rica (4.4)
5. Barbados (4.5)
6. Cuba (4.7)
7. Singapore (6.3)
8. Occupied Palestinian Territories (6.5)
1. Hong Kong, China (SAR) (1.5)
33. Croatia (3.0)
34. Portugal (3.2)
35. Cuba (3.2)
36. Slovakia (3.3)
37. Chile (3.5)
1. Cuba (0.2)
2. Estonia (0.2)
3. Latvia (0.3)
4. Lithuania (0.4)
5. Belarus (0.4)
6. Kazakhstan (0.5)
1. Bulgaria (1)
35. Belize (9)
36. Antigua and Barbuda (9)
37. Cuba (9)
38. Pakistan (9)
39. Trinidad and Tobago (9)
1. Chile (1)
14. Tunisia (4)
15. Turkey (4)
16. Cuba (4)
17. Bosnia and Herzegovina (4)
18. Jamaica (4)
102. Mali (60.2) 172. Swaziland (74.3) 117. Mali (81.0) 125. Ethiopia (78) 134. Nepal (48)


Cuba in Human Development Report 2006

Cuba was mentioned in the Report in pages 264 and 270.