COMCEC Poverty Outlook 2017
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index for Saudi Arabia and Kuwait is negligible (below 5), but Oman’s situation is moderate
(10,4).
Upper-Middle Income OIC Member Countries
Human Development Index
While 12 out of 15 upper-middle OIC income countries are in high human development category,
the rest are in medium human development category . Kazakhstan has the highest
HDI value in this group and positioned at 56 in the ranking, on the other hand, Iraq’s HDI value
is the lowest with 0.649 positioning at 121.
Index values for the first dimension of HDI, GNI per capita (2011, PPP, US$), are between
US$10,249 (Tunisia) and US$24,620 (Malaysia) for the high income countries of which nearly
two-thirds are above the average GNI value for the High Human Development (HHD) category,
which is US$13,844. Index values for the second dimension, life expectancy at birth, are between
64.9 (Gabon) and 79.5 (Lebanon) of which more than half are below the average life expectancy
at birth value for the HHD category (75.5). Regarding the third dimension, mean years of
schooling, half of the upper-middle income OIC countries have an index value that is lower than
the average index value, which is 8.3, and ranges between 6.2 (Maldives) and 11.7 (Kazakhstan).
Lastly, almost all of these countries’ index values for the fourth dimension, expected years of
schooling, are above the average index value (except Iraq 10,1 and Turkmenistan 10,8), which
is 12.3, and range between 10.1 (Iraq) and 15 (Kazakhstan).
Figure 14: HDI Values of Upper-Middle Income OIC Member Countries
Source: UNDP, 2016.
Multidimensional Poverty Index
Among upper-middle income countries, MPI is lowest in Kazakhstan (0.004) and highest in
Gabon (0.073). Indeed, while the multidimensional poverty rate is between 1 and 3 percent in
Kazakhstan, Albania, Libya, Maldives, Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan, it is more than 7 percent in
Suriname, Guyana, Iraq and Gabon. When the multidimensional poverty rates of these countries
compared to their monetary poverty rates, it is seen that the rates of population living in
0,794 0,789 0,774 0,767 0,764 0,763 0,759 0,745 0,725 0,725 0,716 0,701 0,697 0,691 0,649
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