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U.N. study places Cuba among developing countries with best human progress indicators (excerpt)

From Radio Havana, Cuba, 11 June 1997

United Nations, June 11 (RHC) - Trinidad and Tobago, Cuba, Chile, Singapore and Costa Rica are the five developing countries with the best indexes of human development, according to a new United Nations study.

The 1997 U.N. report on human development has, for the first time, based itself not on income, but rather on life expectancy, illiteracy and access to public services. The stated premise is that poverty is not only a lack of adequate income, but also the denial of opportunities and basic options for human development.

The U.N. study classifies 78 developing countries based on the percentage of their populations that die before age of 40, on the level of illiteracy among the adult population and on the lack of access to health, clean drinking water and reasonable nutrition.

The table closes with the seven countries in which this new concept of poverty affects more than 50 percent of the population: Niger, Sierra Leone, Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Mali Mozambique and Cambodia.

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