The Human Development Index (annocrym: HDI) is a number or rank assigned by the United Nations to each respective country each year, it could be overly simplified to a "how much your country rocks" score, so you can easily compare one country's score to another. It's calculated from various things such as education levels, life expectancy, and income (GDP) - and frankly i think it's more interesting if it's kept at these 3 axis instead of all conglamerated together into just one number: the country's HDI rank.
i mention it because i did a search and found to my horror that the Human Development Index had never been discussed or even mentioned on the DBB before.
sooooo, the 2005 numbers all came in last week: http://hdr.undp.org/reports/global/2005/
this flash animation is for 2004, it puts the 2002 figures into a neat visual graph and explains quite well what it's all about. i especially like it because in some parts it visually shows the various countrys moving about on the graph in relation to one another as the years go past from 1975 onwards.
here is the 2005 flash presentation, much better. The end of chapter 8 is especially good, as you can use a slider to slide between the years 1960 all the way to 2003, and watch how all the countrys move around in relation to one another on the "child mortality vs GDP $ per capita" graph - very intuitive.
current top 30 (brackets compare to the previous year):Wikipedia wrote:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Development_Index
The UN Human Development Index (HDI) measures poverty, literacy, education, life expectancy, and other factors. It is a standard means of measuring well-being, especially child welfare. The index was developed in 1990 by the Pakistani economist Mahbub ul Haq, and has been used since 1993 by the United Nations Development Programme in its annual report.
The HDI measures the average achievements in a country in three basic dimensions of human development:
* A long and healthy life, as measured by life expectancy at birth.
* Knowledge, as measured by the adult literacy rate (with two-thirds weight) and the combined primary, secondary and tertiary gross enrollment ratio (with one-third weight).
* A decent standard of living, as measured by gross domestic product (GDP) per capita at purchasing power parity (PPP) in USD.
Each year, countries are ranked according to these measures. Those high on the list often brag about it, as a means of attracting talented migrants (economically, individual capital) or discouraging potential emigrants from leaving.
1. Norway (=)
2. Iceland (↑ 5)
3. Australia (=)
4. Luxembourg (↑ 11)
5. Canada (↓ 1)
6. Sweden (↓ 4)
7. Switzerland (↑ 4)
8. Republic of Ireland (↑ 2)
9. Belgium (↓ 3)
10. United States (↓ 2)
11. Japan (↓ 2)
12. Netherlands (↓ 7)
13. Finland (=)
14. Denmark (↑ 3)
15. United Kingdom (↓ 3)
16. France (=)
17. Austria (↓ 3)
18. Italy (↑ 3)
19. New Zealand (↓ 1)
20. Germany (↓ 1)
21. Spain (↓ 1)
22. Hong Kong SAR (PRC) (↑ 1)
23. Israel (↓ 1)
24. Greece (=)
25. Singapore (=)
26. Slovenia (↑ 1)
27. Portugal (↓ 1)
28. South Korea (=)
29. Cyprus (↑ 1)
30. Barbados (↓ 1)
Unless it's measuring "How many snakes there are in your back yard." 
