Birla Snares Arvind Mills Honcho Rao

The latest edition of The Progress of Nations prepared by UNICEF comes out against the backdrop of the worlds population touching 6 billion and has its focus on HIV/AIDS. There is also a new child risk measure (CRM), based on five criteria -- the under-five mortality rate, percentage of children moderately or severely under-weight, percentage of children not attending primary school, the countrys security rating and its HIV/AIDS prevalence rate. This has a maximum value of 100 and the lower the score of a country, the more secure is a child born in it.

Against a world average CRM of 30, East/South Asia and Pacific has a regional average of 31, with India at 45. However, Nepal is at 44 and Sri Lanka is at 39. Ordinarily one would expect a higher value for Nepal and a lower one for Sri Lanka, compared to India. In many social indicators, sub-Saharan Africa scores better than South Asia. Yet in the CRM, the regional average for sub-Saharan Africa is 61. On the other hand, Cuba, with its known high achievements in human development, has a CRM of 6.

 

The UN system has provided several indicators, HDI (human development index) being the most commonly cited. This is not only because HDI has evolved over time and been refined, but also because it is based on fairly objective criteria. In contrast, CRM seems to be more arbitrary and subjective. For instance, per capita income (in standard or purchasing power parity terms) is not one of the