Slow progress on human development

The Central African Republic, ranked 166 of 174 countries listed in the UNDP’s Human Development Report 2000, was one of those countries to have made the slowest progress in improving human development. In 1975, the country had a human development index (HDI) of 0.332 - on a scale of zero to one, where between 0 and .499 is rated as low human development - and that had risen to just 0.371 by 1998, the report stated. Two-thirds of the population (66.6 percent) was living below the income poverty line of US $1 a day, and more than two-thirds had no access to health services, safe water or sanitation in the period 1990-98, the report stated. While there had been some success in reducing infant and under-five mortality rates, maternal mortality rates were still excessive and life expectancy still stood at just 44.9 years, according to the report. In terms of health, some 53 percent of one-year-olds were immunised against tuberculosis and 39 percent against measles between 1995 and 1998, it added.

Some 180,000 people - or 10.7 percent of the population between 15 and 49 years of age - have also been identified as living with HIV/AIDS, according to the UNDP report. The AIDS pandemic has strongly affected some countries in the Central African region, adding to unease that difficult economic conditions could trigger internal violence as a result of uneven distribution of wealth, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) stated in a recent report.