Nepal has been ranked 27th with 4.24 overall IDI score among 82 developing economies in the inclusive development index, according to a World Economic Forum report.
WEF’s ‘Inclusive Growth and Development Report 2017’, released this week, states, “18 out of 82 developing countries display an IDI score that is nine places or more higher than their GDP per-capita ranking. Six of these – Azerbaijan, Nicaragua, Vietnam, Cambodia, Bangladesh, and Nepal – register IDI scores that are 20 or more places higher than their GDP per capita rankings, suggesting that their development model is considerably more balanced and inclusive than that of countries with a comparable national income per capita.”
“Nepal ranks 27th on the IDI, showing remarkable improvement over the last five years. Notably, its poverty rate has declined by 25 percentage points in this time, and its income inequality (net income Gini) by almost 8 points. It outperforms all others on the inter-generational equity pillar during the most recent year, and has relatively low unemployment, including youth unemployment, and strong female participation in the workforce,” the report further states.
The report also suggests Nepal to tackle corruption and administrative barriers to starting and growing a business, as well as continuing to improve infrastructure and basic services including education – particularly the availability of quality of vocational training.
Nepal also ranks at second in ‘Most Improved 5-Year Trend’ after Lesotho among the developing countries.
Neighboring country China is ahead of Nepal ranking 15th on the IDI with 4.40 score, whereas India is way behind at 60th spot with a score of 3.38. Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Pakistan have ranked 36th, 39th and 52nd with 4.03, 4.01 and 3.56 scores respectively.
On the other hand, Norway has topped the IDI rankings among advanced economies with 6.02 score; followed by Luxembourg, Switzerland, Iceland and Denmark respectively.
The Inclusive Development Index (IDI) is based on 12 performance indicators. In order to provide a more complete measure of economic development than GDP growth alone, the index has three pillars — Growth and Development, Inclusion and Inter-generational Equity, and Sustainability.
IDI scores are based on a scale of 1-7. Advanced and developing economy IDI scores are not strictly comparable due to different definitions of poverty.
