Of all the African countries listed in the United Nations 2018 Human Development Index ranking, these are the top 5 highest ranking countries from the continent:
1. Seychelles (Global Rank – 62)
Human Development Index (HDI) value: 0.717
Life expectancy at birth: 73.7
Expected years of schooling: 14.8
Mean Years of schooling: 9.5
Gross national income (GNI) per capita: $26,077
GNI per capita rank minus HDI rank: -15
2016 HDI rank: 62
2. Mauritius (Global Rank – 65)
Human Development Index (HDI) value: 0.790
Life expectancy at birth: 74.9
Expected years of schooling: 15.1
Mean Years of schooling: 9.3
Gross national income (GNI) per capita: $20,189
GNI per capita rank minus HDI rank: -6
2016 HDI rank: 64
3. Algeria (Global Rank – 85)
Human Development Index (HDI) value: 0.754
Life expectancy at birth: 76.3
Expected years of schooling: 14.4
Mean Years of schooling: 8.0
Gross national income (GNI) per capita: $13,802
GNI per capita rank minus HDI rank: -5
2016 HDI rank: 83
4. Tunisia (Global Rank – 95)
Human Development Index (HDI) value: 0.735
Life expectancy at birth: 75.9
Expected years of schooling: 15.1
Mean Years of schooling: 7.2
Gross national income (GNI) per capita: $10,275
GNI per capita rank minus HDI rank: 7
2016 HDI rank: 96
5. Botswana (Global Rank – 101):
Human Development Index (HDI) value: 0.717
Life expectancy at birth: 67.6
Expected years of schooling: 12.6
Mean Years of schooling: 9.3
Gross national income (GNI) per capita: $15,534
GNI per capita rank minus HDI rank: -26
2016 HDI rank: 102
DEFINITIONS:
Human Development Index (HDI): A composite index measuring average achievement in three basic dimensions of human development—a long and healthy life, knowledge and a decent standard of living.
Life expectancy at birth: Number of years a newborn infant could expect to live if prevailing patterns of age-specific mortality rates at the time of birth stay the same throughout the infant’s life.
Expected years of schooling: Number of years of schooling that a child of school entrance age can expect to receive if prevailing patterns of age-specific enrolment rates persist throughout the child’s life.
Mean years of schooling: Average number of years of education received by people ages 25 and older, converted from education attainment levels using official durations of each level.
Gross national income (GNI) per capita: Aggregate income of an economy generated by its production and its ownership of factors of production, less the incomes paid for the use of factors of production owned by the rest of the world, converted to international dollars using PPP rates, divided by midyear population.
GNI per capita rank minus HDI rank: Difference in ranking by GNI per capita and by HDI value. A negative value means that the country is better ranked by GNI than by HDI value.
HDI rank for 2016: Ranking by HDI value for 2016, which was calculated using the same most recently revised data available in 2018 that were used to calculate HDI values for 2017.
Human Development Indices and Indicators: 2018 Statistical update is being released to ensure consistency in reporting on key human development indices and statistics. With its comprehensive statistical annex, the data gives an overview of the state of development across the world, looking at long-term trends in human development indicators across multiple dimensions and for every nation, the 2018 Update highlights the considerable progress, but also the persistent deprivations and disparities.
The 2018 Update presents HDI values for 189 countries and territories with the most recent data for 2017. Of these countries, 59 are in the very high human development group, 53 in the high, 39 in the medium and only 38 in the low.
The top five countries in the global HDI rankings are Norway (0.953), Switzerland (0.944), Australia (0.939), Ireland (0.938) and Germany (0.936).
The bottom five are Burundi (0.417), Chad (0.404), South Sudan (0.388), the Central African Republic (0.367) and Niger (0.354).