Brazil’s HDI rises, but still does not reach the pre-covid period

Brazil’s Human Development Index (HDI) increased, going from 0.754 to 0.760, a level considered high by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP). But, according to data released yesterday, the country dropped two places in the ranking — in 2021, it was in 87th place and, in 2022, it dropped to 89th place among the 193 countries and territories included in the survey.

The HDI ranges from 0 to 1 — the closer it is to 1, the better the country’s score. Before the pandemic, Brazil’s index reached 0.766, but there was a drop due to the socioeconomic impacts of the health crisis.

The advancement in measurement is directly related to the increase in Brazilian life expectancy: it went from 72.8 years, in 2021, to 73.4 in 2022. It also weighed on the increase in per capita income, which jumped from US$ 14,342 , in 2021, to US$14,616 in the last year of President Jair Bolsonaro’s government.

Extremisms

However, it is no coincidence that the survey was titled Overcoming the impasse: Reimagining cooperation in a polarized world. The UNDP points out that there is a global recovery, but it is still uneven and affected by “political polarization”.

brazilian hdi performance
(photo: pacifico)

“What is happening is that there is a process around the world of population alienation,” said Pedro Conceição, director of the UNDP Human Development Report Office. He mentions that the research shows a worrying fact: although 90% of the world’s population supports democracy, 50% of people admit that they would “support leaders” who would weaken it.

According to Pedro, the obstacles offered by polarization in solving social and environmental problems also weighed on the Brazilian and other nations’ results. “We are failing in many ways. Political polarization poisons domestic and international collaborations,” he warned.

An example cited in the United Nations document was the initiative to “take vaccines or wear masks in the pandemic”. This decision, according to Pedro, was, in many cases, based more on the opinion of “certain groups” than on the effectiveness of the measures, proven by science. “The same happens with climate change,” said the researcher.

He noted that this type of stance would not be limited to citizens, since “there are governments that take very radical positions depending on which side they are on in the international arena.” At the time of the health crisis caused by Covid, the Bolsonaro government drew the attention of the international community for its denial regarding the new coronavirus and the effectiveness of vaccines.

The world head of the UNDP, Achim Steiner, reinforced Pedro Conceição’s warning. “This impasse has a significant human cost. The failure of collective action to advance the fight against climate change, digitalization or poverty and inequality not only harms human development, but also worsens polarization and further erodes trust in people and institutions around the world”, he stated.

Among Latin American countries, Brazil is in 18th position and is ahead of other South American countries, such as Colombia and Ecuador, but behind neighbors such as Uruguay (58th) and Argentina (47th). The average HDI for Latin America and the Caribbean is 0.763, above Brazil’s.

UNDP chief statistician Yanchun Zhang noted that “after Covid-19 and the many sharks that have hit the global economy and society, you will see a lot of movement for various indicators that we use for building human development indices. So , for Brazil, like many countries, the drop from 2019 to 2022 is very big. The recovery in 2022 is there, but not very strong. In the last decade, progress has been slow”, he explained. (With Agência Estado)

*Intern under the supervision of Fabio Grecchi