Government's growth economics gurus always boast that they doubled Belize's GDP in just 5 years, from one to two billion dollars. But growth in GDP doesn't mean that there's been real human development; in fact the richest countries can have the poorest people. International standards say that real human development is dependent on whether citizens are living long and healthy lives, whether they are educated and whether they are productively employed enjoy a decent standard of living. Those areas make up the human development index, considered to be the global standard to measure real human development.
Tonight, the news is that Belize isn't doing well. This year, Belize's ranks 95th out of 177 countries. That's not terrible, but it is startling how far and how fast this country has plummeted in the ratings. In 2003, Belize was positioned 67th, and now it's fallen 28 spots, in just three years.
And while the downward trend is a story unto itself, when put into the context of the entire region, it is even more glaring. A graph provided by the United Nations Development Fund shows that Belize has been on a steady downturn since 1996, contrary to the trend in the Latin American and Caribbean region, which is the orange line. That's a sharp change from 1985 to 1996 when Belize's growth in Human Development outmatched the regional rate.
In this region, Barbados is outstanding, ranked 30th, while Trinidad is ranked 57th and Mexico 53rd. Still, being in 95th position is better than Guatemala which is 118th or Jamaica which is 104th, or Salvador which is 101st.
We should note that the 2006 HDI rating is based on 2004 data, which on the upside, precedes the discovery of oil, or on the downside, is before Belize declared to the world that it could not pay its international debt.
Read the report yourself at Human Development Index.
