Southern African Development Community (SADC) and the Human Development Index (HDI)

• The human development index or HDI is a composite statistic calculated by a mathematical equation which results in a number that can be assigned to each country to measure their development in comparison with other countries. It takes three main factors into account: Life Expectancy at Birth, Literacy rates combined with stats about primary, secondary, and tertiary education levels, and finally Standard of Living which is a logarithm of Gross Domestic Product at Purchasing Power Parity. (Wikipedia, Human Development Index)

SADC Countries and their HDI for 2009 and their ranking compared to other countries

• Angola- (0.564) 143
• Botswana- (0.694) 125
• DRC- (0.389) 176
• Lesotho-(0.514) 156
• Madagascar- (0.543) 145
• Malawi- (0.493) 160
• Mauritius- (0.804) 81
• Mozambique- (0.402) 172
• Namibia- (0.686) 128
• Seychelles- (0.845) 57
• South Africa- (0.683) 129
• Swaziland- (0.572) 142
• Tanzania- (0.530) 151
• Zambia- (0.481) 164
• Zimbabwe- no information available for 2009
• Other notable rankings: Norway 1, USA 13, China 92, Brazil 75, India 134, Russia Federation 71


*These figures were published by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) 2009 Report on Human Development and can be found at (http://hdr.undp.org/en/statistics/)




*note Zimbabwe is not included in the graph