JAMAICA has improved the value of its Human Development Index (HDI) to 0.730 last year, positioning the country at 85 out of the 187 countries and territories ranked in the latest United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Human Development Report (HDR).

The rank, which is in the ‘high human development’ category, is shared with rising economic powerhouse Brazil. The latest score reflects a 19 per cent increase in Jamaica’s HDI value since 1980 when it stood at 0.612. The closer to ‘1’, the better the HDI value.

The HDI is used to measure levels of economic and social development in a country in three broad areas of a long and healthy life, access to knowledge, and a decent standard of living.

A long and healthy life is measured by life expectancy while access to knowledge is measured by mean years of schooling for the adult population, and expected years of schooling for children of school-entrance age. Standard of living is measured by Gross National Income (GNI) per capita expressed in constant 2005 international dollars converted using purchasing power parity (PPP) rates. Jamaica’s GNI per capita increased by about 43 percent between 1980 and 2012.

Countries are put into four groups — very high human development, high human development, medium human development, and low human development.

According to the HDR, launched earlier this month, Jamaica’s movement from 79 in 2011 to 85 in 2012 should not be misconstrued as a negative because of the changes in the indices.

At the launch at the Jamaica Pegasus hotel, UNDP Resident Representative Arun Kashyap said although Jamaica’s HDI was still below the regional average of 0.741, it was above the world average of 0.694.

According to the report, Jamaica is bested by six of the seven other Caribbean countries in the High Human Development grouping, which is topped by western Asia’s Bahrain (48) and has Tunisia (94) in North Africa at the bottom with HDIs of 0.796 and 0.72, respectively.

The other Caribbean countries in the grouping are St Kitts and Nevis, which ranks 72 with a score of 0.745; Trinidad and Tobago and Antigua, which are tied at 67 — each with scores of 0.760; Grenada at 63rd, scoring 0.770; Spanish-speaking Cuba at 59 with a score of 0.780; and The Bahamas which sits at 49 with a score of 0.794. St Lucia is ranked the lowest in the group at 88 with an index value of 0.725.

Meanwhile, Norway leads all countries with a HDI value of 0.955, with Australia (0.938), the United States (0.937), the Netherlands (0.921) and Germany (0.920) rounding off the top five.

Niger and The Democratic Republic of Congo are tied for last with scores of 0.304. The other countries in the bottom five are Mozambique, (0.327), Chad (0.340), and Burkina Faso (0.343). All five countries are on the continent of Africa.

The latest HDR, titled The Rise of the South: Human Progress in a Diverse World, examines emerging issues and trends and also identifies the new actors which are shaping the global development landscape.