A matter of perspective

Every year or so a UN agency produces a report which details progress, or otherwise, in 177 countries around the world. The Human Development Index (HDI) ranks countries in terms of health, education and standard of living.

The 2007/2008 report has some good news, but also some bad news concerning Burkina Faso. Although Burkina continues to develop in many areas, and generally things are somewhat improved from previous years, it appears that other countries are improving at a faster rate, and Burkina is now classified as the second least developed country in the world, down from fourth last year.

The bottom 24 countries on the HDI are in Africa.

The key problem in Burkina, and which helped to bring the country down to its lower position, is the very poor adult literacy rate. Secondary and tertiary education is also a very weak area in the country’s infrastructure.

Burkina, however is gradually getting better. Even in the two years that we have lived here we have noticed a lot of progress.