July 26, 2002 - 20:48 AMT
ARMENIA FIRST ON HUMAN DEVELOPMENT INDEX AMONG REGION STATES
Armenian is the first on 2002 Human Development Index among the South Caucasian region states. The results of the annual research on "the Human Development Index" conducted by independent experts with assistance of the United Nations Development Program state that. According to the research results, Armenia is 76 on the human development among 173 states. The region states: Azerbaijan, Turkey, Georgia and Iran are accordingly 88, 85, 81 and 98. Among the CIS states the highest index of the human development has Belarus that is 56. Russia and Ukraine accordingly are 60 and 80. The leading position of Belarus in comparison with other states is conditioned with the high GDP per capita rather than with literacy level and life expectancy. So, the literacy level in Belarus, Armenia, Ukraine, Russia, Turkmenistan is the same. On life expectancy, Belarus gives way to Armenia, Georgia and Azerbaijan taking the lead over Ukraine and Russia. Norway has the top human development index. Sweden is the second followed by Canada, Belgium and Australia. US is the sixth, France is twelfth. It should be noted, Armenia was 93 among 174 countries in the world on the 2001 Human Development Index.