Where Pakistan stands in HDR ranking 2013

The theme
ise of the South in the Human Development Report 2013 speaks of the exceptional growth the developing countries have achieved in terms of a long and healthy life, knowledge and a decent standard of living on account of global trade and world economic output.
During the last decade or so, the region registered the highest annual growth of 1.44 percent compared to all others. When analysed individually, Afghanistan, a member of the low human development cluster, led the pack with a CAGR of 3.9 percent during 2000-2012, followed by the group member, Pakistan (1.73 percent) and the medium human development gang associate, India (1.51 percent).
However, some of the charms of high growth and development in Pakistan as well as South Asian region fade due to the regions inherently low base and wide disparity when compared to the developed world, plausibly referred to as North in the HDR report 2013.
Sadly Pakistans progress has not been able to categorise it amongst the high achievers like Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Turkey, Thailand and most importantly Bangladesh, to name but a few.
Pakistans standing on the multidimensional poverty index is not that impressive as almost 49 percent of people live in multidimensional poverty, second only to Bangladeshs 58 percent. Moreover, what is more appalling is the intensity of deprivation of 53 percent in Pakistan is higher than that of Bangladesh, even when the head count ratio of the poor of the latter exceeds that of the former.
The results also suggest when compared to its peers in the low human development category, Pakistans performance on the index depends more on the health dimension, whereas, in Bangladesh and Nepal, living standard has more role than health and education. Additionally, Pakistan also suffers more loss in HDR ranking due to the inequalities, second only to Nepal.
Policy makers should be concerned about the countrys human development evidence. They should also bear in mind that even though the South Asian region has been efficient in collective performance against other regions and that Pakistans ranking in gender inequality index surpasses that of India; a lot needs to be achieved to get the country going uphill. To date, progress still awaits drastic changes.