BEIRUT: While Lebanon is considered to have high human
development rates compared to other countries in the region, the lack of data
presents many obstacles to growth, delegates heard at the launch of the Human
Development Report 2011 in Beirut Thursday.
The annual U.N. Development Program report, this year entitled,
“Sustainability and Equity: A Better Future for All,” ranked Lebanon 71 out of
187 countries, one place higher than its last appearance in the HDR in 2009.
Lebanon was not included in last year’s report due to a lack of statistics, and
this dearth was again cited as a major obstacle to national progress.
The U.N. measures human development on three basic dimensions: a
long and healthy life, access to knowledge and a decent standard of living.
This year’s report makes special reference to the relationship
between the environment and human progress, and Environment Minister Nazim
Khoury spoke at the launch.
The HDR, he said, highlighted that the main challenge facing the
world today is to provide for future generations so that the “the present does
not become the enemy of the future.”
Human development, Khoury said, reveals the “close relationship
between sustainability and equity” which must be respected “so that we can
achieve our main demands of equality between all people, of all sects, across
the world.”
Kamal Hamdan, the managing director of the Consultation and
Research Institute, presented and analyzed the report’s key findings relating
to Lebanon, and the wider Arab region. The report’s overwhelming findings, he
said, were the huge discrepancies between various countries within the region.
In terms of health, the average life expectancy in Lebanon is
72.6 years, which places it 14th in the region, behind Occupied Palestine in
13th place at 72.8 years but above the world average of 69.8 years.
While Lebanon’s average life expectancy has increased by six
years since 1980, Hamdan said that with one of the highest expenditures for
health care in the region, the findings must force “us to ask many questions
about the values and returns of this health care spending,” given the relatively
low ranking in this regard.
With regard to education, the average length of schooling in the
Arab world is 5.9 years, compared to 10 in Europe and Central Asia. Lebanon
falls in the middle regionally and at 7.9 years, has a similar rate to Latin
America.
Despite often priding itself on being the birthplace of the
alphabet, Hamdan warned the Lebanese to be “a bit more humble” about the
country’s educational levels.
Citing a desire for better education as a key factor behind this
year’s Arab Spring, Hamdan also highlighted the report’s findings in regard to
secondary education – the proportion of those over 25 years of age holding a
degree.
The region ranks poorly in relation to the rest of the world,
with less than half of the population educated to a secondary level and a
relatively low overall share of Lebanon’s population falls in this category,
Hamdan said.
However the gender gap is quasi-non-existent, he added, with
32.4 percent of women and 33.3 percent of men holding a degree in Lebanon. In Syria,
Libya, Kuwait and Qatar, more women than men hold degrees.
In terms of gender equality, which is measured by reproductive
health, empowerment and economic activity, the region “lags behind other areas
in empowering women” the report says, and Hamdan said this was another key
instigator behind the Arab Spring.
Lebanon ranks eighth in terms of gender quality in the region,
with Kuwait, the UAE and Bahrain leading the pack. Yemen has the highest levels
of gender inequality in the region.
The Arab region has the lowest female labor participation in the
world, at almost half the global rate, the report shows. Lebanon ranks poorly,
with the sixth lowest in the region, at 22.3 percent, (versus 71.5 percent for
men) despite the absence of a gender gap in education.
So while many women are receiving an education, they are not
necessarily joining the work force, Hamdan said.
In terms of the environment, the Arab region faces many
challenges, the report shows. It is the world’s most arid region, has the
world’s highest dependency on fossil fuels and the greatest urban pollution of
all regions.
Seifeldin Abbaro, UNDP’s country director for Lebanon, also
spoke at the launch, and said that climate change has become a reality to
everyone, even the skeptics.
Khoury said that each of us must ask himself or herself, “What
can I do? What did I contribute to the deterioration in the environment? How
can I change my behavior?”
But while the
HDR 2011 “gives us long term ideas about progress, health care, education and
development,” as Hamdan said, “we need to have more progress in defining the
concept and collection of data.”
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Local-News/2011/Nov-04/153117-lack-of-data-slows-progress-in-lebanon-un-report.ashx#axzz1ckcjk1Dj
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