South Africa is ranked 111 out of 175 countries measured by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in its 2003 Human Development report.
It is one of nine African countries to be ranked as having ”medium human development”. Only the Seychelles made the ”high human development” list. Top of the list is Norway, bottom is Sierra Leone.
Eight ”millennium development goals” were agreed to by 147 world leaders at the UN-sponsored Millennium Summit in September 2000.
The goals are to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger — meaning the number of people living on less than $1 (about R7,50) a day — to achieve universal primary education, promote gender equality and the empowerment of women, reduce child mortality, improve maternal health, combat HIV/Aids, malaria and other diseases, ensure environmental sustainability and develop a global partnership for development.
The statistics used are those for 2001, and the target date for achieving the goals is 2015.
In South Africa less than two percent of people lived below the UN’s extreme poverty line, and 27% of children under five were underweight for their age. In 2000/2001 89% of children were enrolled at schools, and 75% reached Grade Five.
The literacy rate of people aged 15 to 24 increased to 91,5% from 88,5% in 1990.
In contrast, Sierra Leone had 57-million people living on less than $1 a day, and no one in Denmark had this struggle.
In Denmark 94% of children reach Grade Five. This data was not available for Sierra Leone.
South Africa did quite well on the upper rungs of the women’s empowerment list, with 30% of members of Parliament in 2001 being women. In Denmark women held 38% of the parliamentary seats, in Swaziland, three percent, and in Sierra Leone 15%.
The ratio of girls to boys in primary education in South Africa was 0,94, down from 0,98 in 1990/1. However, this did not differ much from top-scoring Denmark’s ratio of 0,95.
However, girls’ enrolment ratio strengthened in secondary (1,10) and tertiary education (1,24). For every one literate male, there was a literate female.
In South Africa 71 of every 1 000 children born alive made it to their fifth birthday, but, in 2001, infant mortality was at 56 of every 1 000. This was considerably more than Denmark’s four out of every 1 000, but far less than Sierra Leone’s 182.
The UN goals also pledge increased maternal health, and, in South Africa maternal mortality was 340 per 100 000 live births in 1995 (the latest data available). Sierra Leone’s women fared far worse with 2 100 dying per 100 000 live births. This contrasted sharply with Denmark’s 15.
Twenty-eight African countries were listed as having ”low human development”, and only five non-African countries — Nepal, Pakistan, Yemen, Haiti and Eritrea — were on this list.
Along with South Africa on the ”medium” list are Mauritius (62), Algeria (107), Gabon (118), Egypt (120), Namibia (124), Botswana (125), Swaziland (133) and Lesotho (137).
Directly above South Africa on the list is the Syrian Arab Republic, directly below is Indonesia.
HIV/Aids cast a shadow on South Africa, with 24,1-million pregnant women in urban areas testing positive for the immune deficiency virus between 1999 and 2002. There were no statistics for other areas, and none at all for Sierra Leone or Denmark.
The malaria mortality rate per 100 000 children in 2000 was zero. Fifty-five out of every 100 000 people died of tuberculosis. In South Africa 7,3% of the land was covered by forests in 2000, compared to 14,7% in Sierra Leone and 10,7% in Denmark. South Africa’s ratio of protected area to surface area was 0,05 in 2003, as opposed to 0,10 in Denmark
Seventy-three percent of South Africans living in rural areas in 2000 had sustainable access to an improved water source, versus 46% in Sierra Leone. In urban areas the South African percentage was 99%. – Sapa