Over the recent years, Nepal has made notable progress on overall human development.

--BY NEWBIZ TEAM

The Human Development Index is a tool developed by the United Nations to assess various countries' basic human development achievements. It measures a country's levels of social and economic development. HDI is a composite index of life expectancy, education, and per capita income indicators.

A higher level of HDI indicates a country's higher life expectancy, higher access to knowledge, and higher standard of living.  

According to the United Nations Development Programme that publishes the HDI, a long and healthy life is measured by life expectancy, knowledge by mean years of schooling among the adult population, and standard of living by Gross National Income (GNI) per capita

Nepal’s HDI value and rank Nepal’s HDI value for 2019 is 0.602— which put the country in the medium human development category—positioning it at 142 out of 189 countries and territories.

Over the recent years, Nepal has made notable progress on overall human development.

Between 1990 and 2019, Nepal’s HDI value increased from 0.387 to 0.602, an increase of 55.6%. Between 1990 and 2019, Nepal’s life expectancy at birth increased by 16.4 years, mean years of schooling increased by 3.0 years, and expected years of schooling increased by 5.2 years, according to a recent report by the UN.

Nepal’s GNI per capita increased by about 151.9 percent between 1990 and 2019, the UN report says.

However, there are significant disparities that still exist in the form of gender, social groups, and location. Although Nepal’s HDI score has improved gradually since 1990, and it jumped from the low to the middle human development category in 2016, Nepal is still behind most other South Asian countries.