It is a well documented compilation that brings much good news! Child mortality counted as deaths < 5 years per 1000 born has dropped in Tanzania that had:

1995:  155 deaths per 1000 born (Sweden had this rate 1896)

2010:   76 Read more ...]]> UN just published estimates for child mortality in all countries in 2010!  http://www.unicef.org/media/files/Child_Mortality_Report_2011_Final.pdf

It is a well documented compilation that brings much good news! Child mortality counted as deaths < 5 years per 1000 born has dropped in Tanzania that had:

1995:  155 deaths per 1000 born (Sweden had this rate 1896)

2010:   76 deaths per 1000 born (Sweden had this rate 1928)

This means that what Tanzania achieved in the last 15 years took Sweden 32 years to do! Tanzania improves with twice the speed of historical Sweden. They are catching-up. Tanzania´s average annual rate of reduction of child mortality over the last 15 years was 4.6 %. The Millennium Development Goal rate set by UN is an annual average rate of reduction of 4.3%!  Tanzania is moving faster! But during the 5 years between 1990 and 1995 the child mortality in Tanzania was stagnant at about 155 per 1000 born. Some still measure MDG rate from 1990 and says Tanzania is not moving fast enough. But this is ridiculous (sorry for hard but true word). The MDG´s were set in 2000 and the use of a retrospective starting point makes no sense 10 years later. It is the speed of progress that matter, not the distance covered from a point back in history! Honor to Tanzania that is moving faster than MDG rate.  Honor also to those that assisted in this magnificent achievement in reducing child mortality!

Hans Rosling

- He is wrong, Cuba is just the poorest of the healthy countries.

Gapminder World Read more ...]]> A decade ago I lectured to the staff of the Ministry of Health in Cuba. After my talk the Minister happily said, this graphs showed that Cuba is the healthiest of the poor countries! On the way out a young staff member whispered in my ear:

- He is wrong, Cuba is just the poorest of the healthy countries.

Gapminder World describes that both were right, www.bit.ly/l02EOP People in Cuba has the same life span  as Chile, Portugal, South Korea, Greece and USA. But Cuba has the lowest income per person of all these countries with Life Expectancy of 79 years! Is Cuba´s upper left position due to good health policy or bad economic policy?  I would say YES due to both reason, and now it seems as the new leader is fed up with the bad economic policy and starts to allows some privet enterprises in Cuba. http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/americas/05/17/cuba.private.businesses/index.html

Hans Rosling

But Ireland has cached up and overtaken the former colonial ruler in both income and health. Read more ...]]> Look at the great catch up of Ireland since the terrible famine in 1849. That year the lifespan in Ireland, 20 years, was estimated to half of that in UK! And the estimated income per person in Ireland was only 1/3 of that in UK.

But Ireland has cached up and overtaken the former colonial ruler in both income and health. Note in Gapminder World that Ireland in spite of the economic downturn still has a higher average income per person than UK www.bit.ly/imxm1V . The latest data from IMF displayed in Google public data explorer confirms that Ireland still remains ahead of UK in GDP per capita when comaprision is made in purchasing power parity.
http://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=k3s92bru78li6_&ctype=l&strail=false&nselm=h&met_y=ppppc&scale_y=lin&ind_y=false&rdim=country_group&idim=country:IE:GB&tstart=315532800000&tunit=Y&tlen=36&hl=en&dl=en&uniSize=0.035&iconSize=0.5

Hans Rosling

Hans Read more ...]]> The five countries with the highest oil reserves per person  are UAE, Qatar, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia & Libya.  All five score very low, from -7 to -10, in democracy (the scores run from +10 to -10)!  Of these five countries Libya has the lowest amounts of oil reserves per person; and therefore perhaps the highest chance for democracy? www.bit.ly/iLTom2

Hans Rosling 20 May 2011

Since 1950 GDP/capita has not grown at all, it remains around 1 thousand dollar per person in Haiti. In spite of this Life expectancy has increased from 36 to 61 years. So with money sent home from relatives in US and Read more ...]]> Michel Martelly was sworn in Saturday as the new president of Haiti. He face a relay tough task!

Since 1950 GDP/capita has not grown at all, it remains around 1 thousand dollar per person in Haiti. In spite of this Life expectancy has increased from 36 to 61 years. So with money sent home from relatives in US and modern health technology people do get more health for the buck! But so far they have got no more bucks.

In contrast, the close by Caribbean Island nation Barbados (where a dominant part of the population also are of African origin) increased GDP/capita 5-fold to 15 thousand dollar per person in Barbados. Barbados increase Life expectancy to 78 years, just one year less than USA! In fact blacks in Barbados live longer than blacks in USA.

Look at the chockingly different trails in income and health of Barbados and Haiti in Gapminder World www.bit.ly/l6qlRc

Ask your teacher or find out yourself; Why are the outcome for populations of African origin so different in different nations in the Americas!

Not only has the income per person steadily imporved since 1995, but so has also the mean number of years in school for women and Azerbadjan has today higher GDP/ Read more ...]]> Azerbaijan not only won the European Song Contest 2011, it also has among the highest oil and natural gas production per person in the world www.bit.ly/iNksgW

Not only has the income per person steadily imporved since 1995, but so has also the mean number of years in school for women and Azerbadjan has today higher GDP/ capita than the two neigbouring Caucasian nations. www.bit.ly/iFAigh

So given the modest developemtn level at the independence from Soviet in 1991, Azerbaijan is now a successful European country. But is this muslim country really European?

Yes it is European, because Azerbaijan is a member of the Councel of Europa   http://www.coe.int/aboutcoe/index.asp?page=47pays1europe&l=en , it is a member of the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) where Azerbaijan ranks 37 of 53 members http://www.uefa.com/memberassociations/uefarankings/country/index.html and as of tonight Azerbaijan is the winner of the Eurovision Song Contest. Interestingly wealth and health of country has no importance for the chance of winning the Song Contest. Winning must be interpreted as a cultural and political expression of being part of Europe. Look at the GDP/capita (6000 to 48 000 dollar)  and Life Expectancy (67 to 81 years) of the last 10 winners of Eurovision Song Contest in Gapminder World: www.bit.ly/jIlz5u

Hans Rosling

Look how so many countries in Africa in this Read more ...]]> The economic growth in Africa is more than 5% per year and that is faster than world average. Companies in emerging economies (=middle income countries or BRIC) are more positive to invest in Africa than are those i high income countries says report from World Economic Forum http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_GCR_Africa_Report_2011.pdf

Look how so many countries in Africa in this century have replaced th stagnation in the 1990íes with fast economic growth www.bit.ly/iTjffl