NEWS: Canada Best Place to Live - UN Report

[janet paterson <janet313@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Canada Best Place to Live - UN Report

Thursday June 29 7:06 PM ET - UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Canada, for the 
seventh consecutive year, ranks as the best place to live in the world. But if 
you are a woman, you are better off in Scandinavia, says the UN Human 
Development Report 2000, released on Thursday.

Norway is in second place in overall rankings, followed by the United States, 
Australia, Iceland, Sweden, Belgium, the Netherlands, Japan and Britain. 
Finland is in 11th place, followed by France, Switzerland, Germany, Denmark, 
Austria, Luxembourg, Ireland, Italy and New Zealand.

At the other end of the scale, the 10 least-developed countries that provide 
the fewest services to their people, from the bottom up are: war-devastated 
Sierra Leone, Niger, Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Burundi, Guinea-Bissau, 
Mozambique, Chad, Central African Republic and Mali.

This year's survey by the UN Development Program, like its 10 predecessors, 
ranks 174 nations according to income, health care, life expectancy and 
educational levels.

In addition to the ratings, the report this year looks at the relationship 
between human rights and development and proposes policies to promote and 
respect democracy.

The statistical rankings have gained such exposure in the past decade that the 
Canadian province of Ontario is using them in its television commercials to 
attract business, advertising itself as the best place to live in the world.

But the report cautioned Ontario, Canada's richest and most populous province, 
against complacency. It noted that the provincial government was also using the 
report to justify its full funding for Roman Catholic schools but not for those 
of any other religious group.

"Canada's high scores in adult literacy and school and college enrollment do 
not disprove religious discrimination in access to public education - and in no 
way waive the need for Ontario to remedy the situation", the report said.

But income alone, the report says, did not automatically mean better 
educational or health services.

Guinea, Pakistan and Vietnam, for example, have similar levels of per capita 
income, but their placing in the index shows otherwise. Guinea ranks 162nd, 
Pakistan 135th and Vietnam 108th, an indication Hanoi spends more on primary 
health care to bring down infant mortality rates.

When progress for women is measured, Canada slips into eighth place and the 
United States ranks 13th in the so-called "gender empowerment index" that 
measures the number of women in parliament, government, professional or 
technical jobs and their average earnings compared to men.

The 20 top countries in this category are Norway, Iceland, Sweden, Denmark, 
Finland, Germany, Netherlands, Canada, New Zealand, Belgium, Australia, 
Austria, United States, Switzerland, Britain, Bahamas, Barbados, Portugal, 
Spain and Venezuela. No statistics were available for France.

Japan, whose high standard of living and widespread education put it in 9th 
place in the overall rankings, was 41st on the gender equality index, below 
that of Costa Rica, in 24th place. Likewise, South Korea, which ranked 31st in 
the overall index, fell to 63rd in the women's equality standings. Greece 
showed a similar discrepancy from 25th place overall to 49th place when 
advancement for women was measured. In Latin America, Chile with an overall 
ranking of 38th, fell to 51st on the women's equality measurement.

Among the richest nations, the report shows relative prosperity is also 
accompanied by pockets of poverty.
While the United States has the world's highest gross national product, it 
ranks first in poverty rates among the 18 richest countries. Ireland is in 
second place and Britain in third. The main reason was the prevalence of 
functional illiteracy - about one person in five--the report said.

The report said 22 countries in Africa and Eastern Europe experienced major 
reversals in health care and other social services, largely because of the 
impact of AIDS in southern and eastern Africa and economic stagnation in the 
former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.

Sakiko Fukuda-Parr, a coordinator of the report, said governments should study 
the index for progress achieved year to year, especially for the most deprived, 
rather than the absolute rankings. "Look at the Human Development Index to see 
where your country stands - and then look again, and again", she said.


By Evelyn Leopold
Copyright 2000 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.
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janet paterson
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