Human Development

The United Nations Human Development Index - Dimensions of human development:

• Empowerment [‘Empowerment and agency: enabling people and groups to act—to drive valuable outcomes.’]
• Sustainability and vulnerability
• Human security
• Perceptions of individual well-being and happiness
• Civic and community well-being
• Demographic trends
• Decent work
• Education
• Health

Ranking of the six remaining leaded petrol countries in the composite United Nations Human Development Index: Afghanistan 155, Algeria:84, Iraq (NA),North Korea (NA), Myanmar (Burma) 132, Yemen 133. For comparison, Norway was 1 and Australia 2. The United States was 4.

Cooper:

Human Development and the Elimination of Leaded Petrol in 2006

‘In 2008, human development data relating to 2006 was available for the following countries which continued to use lead additives in their vehicular fuels: Algeria, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Egypt, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Macedonia, Morocco, Myanmar, Palestine, Serbia, Tajikistan, Tunisia, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Yemen. Data was not available for Afghanistan, Iraq, North Korea or Western Sahara. The Human Development Index for 2008 (which reported on 2006 data) assessed the human development levels in 179 countries throughout the world (United Nations Development Programme 2008b).

‘From the finding that the datasets were statistically equal, it was possible to conclude with confidence that any relationship which may have been observed between economic freedom values and a failure to eliminate leaded petrol in 2006 (e.g. in the histograms or box plots generated by the data) emerged by chance. [Ed’s italics]

‘The finding that no such correlation exists between the factors makes it possible to conclude with confidence there was no causative relationship between a country’s human development levels and its status in relation to the elimination of leaded vehicular fuels. It was therefore possible to conclude with confidence that the human development levels that were present in countries still reliant on leaded petrol was not acting as a barrier to the global effort to eliminate lead additives from vehicular fuels in 2006.

Human Development and the Elimination of Leaded Petrol in 2010

‘In 2010, human development data was available for the following countries which continued to use lead additives in their vehicular fuels: Afghanistan, Algeria, Myanmar, and Yemen. Data was not available for Iraq or North Korea. The extremely small sample size associated with the leaded dataset limits the reliability of any analysis that can be conducted in relation to human development data in 2010. The Human Development Index for 2010 assessed the human development levels of 169 countries throughout the world (United Nations Human Development Programme 2010).

‘The absence of a correlation between a country’s human development levels and status in relation to the elimination of leaded fuels denies the possibility of a causal relationship between the factors…therefore that the human development levels present in countries reliant on leaded petrol is not acting as a barrier to the global effort to eliminate lead additives from vehicular fuels.’ [Ed’s italics]