COVID has dragged Bulgaria to the bottom of the EU in terms of human development (Overview)
Overtaken by Thailand and Albania, it no longer falls into the group of the most highly developed countries
Decades of progress on life policy, education and economic prosperity have begun to crumble under the pressure of the global crisis, a new report says. Over the past two years, 9 out of 10 UN countries have fallen behind in the SFR Development Index. Going down by as many as 12 places, Bulgaria drops out of the group of the most highly developed countries and already lags behind all its neighbors in terms of quality of life, with the exception of North Macedonia.
COVID-19, the war in Ukraine and the effects of climate change are reversing the trend towards global progress, the BBC points out.
The Human Development Index began in 1990 in an attempt to gain insight into the well-being of more than 191 nations around the world by looking beyond their gross domestic product (GDP).
This year, the ranking was topped by Switzerland with an average gross national income (GNI) of 66,000 dollars. The report prepared by the United Nations indicates that the expected change of life in the country is 84 years, of which on average 16.5 are devoted to education.
At the other end of the scale is South Sudan, where the average life expectancy is 55 years and people spend only
5.5 years in school and earn just $768 per year by the same metric.
According to this year’s ranking, created on the basis of data for 2021, Bulgaria ranks 68th in the world and is second in the group of “highly developed countries”, which is led by Albania. For comparison, during the preparation of the index for 2020, our country occupied 56th place, again chasing Romania and Turkey (49th and 54th), but Albania, Georgia and Serbia were closely behind it – also falling in the list of the most developed. Now, however, Bulgaria is the only EU member that does not appear in this list.
UN data for Bulgaria show an expected average life expectancy of 71.8 years, 13.9 of which are devoted to education, and the GNI per capita is $23,071 per year.
Romania, one of Bulgaria’s biggest competitors in the past, is now 15 places ahead with 74.2 years of average life change, 14.2 years in school and an annual GNI of $30,027. In front of it are Slovakia and Hungary, also EU countries.
Failures in more than 191 countries, inclusion in the measurement of the index, especially in relation to the trend of life, return the levels of development to those observed in 2016, reversing a 30-year trend.
In the US, for example, life expectancy at birth has declined by more than two years since 2019. In other countries, the decline is much greater.
In the years since the index was introduced, many countries have faced the crisis and taken a step back, but the global trend has not stopped moving upwards. Since the calculations began, the last year for the first time on record had fallen, and this year’s result reinforced the downward trend.
However, the negative impact is not normal. Two thirds of
rich countries have recovered over the past year,
while for the rest, the decline in the quality of life has not been contained and continues to cast a shadow on the overall development.
This year’s index is based on data from 2021. “No prospects for 2022 are bleak,” said Achim Steiner, one of the authors of the report, which noted that more than 80 countries are having trouble servicing their national debt. “Eighty countries are one step away from facing this kind of crisis, which is a very serious prospect,” he adds. According to him, the disruptions we are witnessing are profound and create uncertainty about the future.