Statistics as tragedies

Statistics as tragedies

BY SEAN HEALY

The HDR 2000 is primarily a statistical compilation, with pages and pages of tables. But amongst the statistics are real tragedies:

• In Afghanistan, 94% of the country's 21.3 million people have no access to safe water.

• In the United States, one in five adults is not functionally literate.

• In Yemen, 70% of boys attend school, but only 27% of girls.

• In Jamaica, the richest 20% own 83.7% of the income while the poorest 20% own 1.9%. The inequality gap, 44:1, is the world's highest.

• In Guinea-Bissau, the total external debt is now 503% of the country's gross national product (GNP), a sum they will never be able to pay off. It has tripled between 1985 and 1998.

• In Georgia, the gross domestic product (GDP) per capita shrunk by two-thirds between 1990-1998. It now stands at US$703.

• In Sierra Leone, the world's poorest country, average per capita GDP is US$150 per year, 41 cents a day. The poorest 20% get only 1.1% of the country's income.

• Worldwide, about 1.2 million women and girls are trafficked for prostitution each year.

• Only three countries, Norway, Denmark and the Netherlands, committed more than 0.7% of their GNP to overseas aid, the already paltry figure requested by the United Nations. Australia gave only 0.27%, the US 0.1%.

From GLW issue 412