8 September 2006
Maputo — Mozambique has continued to make significant gains in its human development index in recent years, according to the statistics presented in the latest National Human Development Report, published by the Southern African Research and Development Centre (SARDC), and funded by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).
Although the report is dated 2005, it was launched in Maputo on Friday.
The human development index (HDI) consists of three variables - life expectancy at birth, educational level (measured by the adult literacy rate, and the combined enrolment rate for primary, secondary and tertiary education) and real GDP per capita.
The maximum possible value for the HDI is 1, and the latest global Human Development Report from UNDP ranks Norway as the most developed country with an HDI of 0.963. At the bottom of the pile is Niger with an HDI of just 0.281.
The Mozambican researchers have calculated Mozambique's HDI since the start of the millennium. It has risen from 0.366 in 2000, to 0.385 in 2001, 0.402 in 2002, 0.414 in 2003, and 0.428 in 2004. So the HDI has grown, on average, by about four per cent a year.
All the components of the HDI show improvement. Despite the HIV/AIDS epidemic, the report states that Mozambique's life expectancy at birth has risen from 44.3 years in 2000 to 46.7 years in 2004 - which reflects reductions in infant and child mortality.
The adult literacy rate rose from 43.3 per cent in 2000 to 46.4 per cent, which is the figure established by the 2002-03 household survey undertaken by the National Statistics Institute (INE). Given the continued expansion of literacy classes since 2003, the rate is likely to be rather higher now.
As for the school attendance rate, the continued expansion of the school network has ensured that an ever increasing number of children are able to attend school. There was an average annual increase in enrolment of about 7.6 per cent between 2000 and 2004.
But the sharpest improvement has been in real per capita GDP, which rose from 996.3 to 1,640.6 dollars between 2000 and 2004. That is an average growth of 9.2 per cent a year.
As in previous editions, this report breaks down the GDP by province - which shows that GDP growth has been very uneven, ranging from an average of 18.9 per cent a year in Maputo province (certainly due to the construction here of the country's largest factory, the MOZAL aluminium smelter) to just 5.4 per cent a year in the neighbouring province of Gaza.
A strong showing is also made by Inhambane, with an average growth of 11.5 per cent a year - due overwhelmingly to the exploitation of natural gas at Temane, and the building of the gas pipeline from Temane to South Africa.
When the HDI is calculated by province, it is starkly clear that the capital is far and away the best place in Mozambique to live. Maputo city had an HDI of 0.651 in 2004, and Maputo province an HDI of 0.588.
The lowest HDIs were all in the north of the country - 0.353 in Niassa, 0.340 in Nampula and 0.313 in Cabo Delgado. Although these figures are low, they are still rather better than in earlier years - thus in 2000 the HDI for Cabo Delgado was only 0.259, and for Nampula 0.297.
Zambezia, the province with the second worst figures at the start of the millennium, has improved its HDI substantially, rising from 0.287 in 2000 to 0.376 in 2004.
A further useful composite measure is the Human Poverty Index (HPI). The components of this index are the percentage of people who do not live to the age of 40, the percentage of adults who are illiterate, and the deprivation of decent living standards (given by an arithmetical average of the percentage of people without safe drinking water, the percentage without access to health services, and the percentage of children under three years old who are moderately or severely under weight).
Unlike the HDI, with the Human Poverty Index the higher the figure, the poorer the society in question is. In Mozambique the HPI has gradually fallen - from 55.9 in 1997, to 50.9 in 2000, to 48.9 in 2003 (the last year for which full figures were available when the report was written).
The HPI shows Zambezia as the poorest province, with an index of 59.1, followed by Cabo Delgado on 57.6. As expected, Maputo City remains the richest province, with an HPI of 18.4.
Ten of the 11 provinces saw a decline in their HPI between 2000 and 2003 - the exception is the northernmost province of Niassa, where the HPI rose from 53.2 in 2000 to 55.9 in 2003.
The figures also show that the gap between rural and urban areas is shrinking. In 1997, the percentage of the urban population below the poverty threshold was 62 per cent, while in the countryside the figure was 71.3 per cent. In 2003, the figures were 51.5 per cent and 55.3 per cent respectively.
So in the space of six years poverty in rural Mozambique fell by 16 percentage points, while in the urban areas it fell by only 10.5 percentage points.
The details show sharply the difference between Maputo and the rest of the country. In Maputo city only 19.03 per cent of people die before their 40th birthday. Even in Gaza, just 100 kilometres up the road, the figure is 32.25 per cent, and in Cabo Delgado it reaches 43.6 per cent.
Only 6.8 per cent of adults in Maputo City were illiterate in 2003 - even in Maputo province the figure was 28.6 per cent, while in the northern provinces two thirds of adults are illiterate (68.4 per cent in Cabo Delgado).
Only 8.98 per cent of Maputo city children under three years old are under weight - but the figure rises to 43.23 per cent in Cabo Delgado.
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