UNITED NATIONS, Sept 7: Among the 177 countries covered by the annual UN Human Development Report, Pakistan ranks at 135 while India ranks 127th and Bangladesh 139th.

The report, released on Wednesday, says that China has climbed 20 places in the human development ranking since 1990 to number 85. It notes modest economic growth in South Asia as against sub-Saharan Africa.

However, according to the report, economic boom and rising incomes in China and India have not helped in cutting child mortality rates in China and among the poor Indian girls.

On the other hand, the report says that poorer countries such as Bangladesh have managed to cut child mortality rates at a faster rate than China and India, showing that higher income alone is not the key to better health and education.

Annual UNDP Human Development Report ranks countries by measuring life expectancy, literacy rates, school enrolment and average income.

The latest report notes that South Asia has less poverty and higher average incomes than Sub-Saharan Africa, but South Asia’s percentage of underweight women is four times higher and its child malnutrition rate 20 per cent higher.

In India, preferential treatment of boys is undermining the potential for converting growth into human development, the report says.

It says one in every 11 children in India dies before the age of five, and girls between the ages of one and five are 50 per cent more likely to die than boys.

“Girls, less valued than their brothers, especially in India’s northern states, are often brought to health facilities in more advanced stages of illness, taken to less qualified doctors and have less money spent on their health care,”’ the report says.

Pointing out further gender inequality, it says Pakistan’s girls account for only 41 per cent of the primary school population. Gender equality will put another two million girls in the country in school, it adds.

In Indonesia, women in the poorest 20 per cent of the population are four times more likely to die during pregnancy than women in the richest 20 per cent, it says. Women who die during pregnancy are twice as likely to be uneducated and 50 per cent less likely to have access to clean water.

“(Economic) growth is not going to be sufficient to deliver human development.... The reason countries are stagnating on further progress in human development is that they are not focusing enough on inequality,” said Arunabha Ghosh, an author of the report.

Governments should focus on ending inequality - between rich and poor, men and women and various regions within a country - to improve human development, he said.

The report cites increased immunizations and better healthcare and education for women as factors behind Bangladesh’s success in scaling back child mortality and maternal malnutrition rates and boosting primary school enrolment.

“In China, child mortality rate in urban areas such as Shanghai and Beijing is eight deaths per 1,000 live births - comparable to the United States.

“But in the poorest province of Guizhou, there are 60 deaths per 1,000 live births, which is comparable to Namibia,” it says.

The gap is aggravated by a policy shift that transferred the burden of healthcare from public providers to households, it says.