Nepal Leads South Asia In Inclusive Development

A recently-released World Economic Forum (WEF) report has positioned Nepal at the top in terms of Inclusive Development Index (IDI) 2018 in South Asia.

Nepal secured the 22^nd position among 74 countries and leads the South Asian region in this report that analyzed inclusive growth of 103 global economies by growth and development, inclusion, and inter-generational equity.

The other South Asian countries followed Nepal that was ranked 27 in IDI 2017.

While India ranked 62^nd, Pakistan improved from 52^nd in 2017 to 47^th place in IDI 2018. Whereas, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka remained at 34^th and 40^th positions in the IDI 2018 against their 2017 rankings (36 and 39), respectively in IDI 2017.

Three South Asian economies including Bhutan, Afghanistan, and Maldives did not appear in the IDI 2018 list.

IDI divided the world nations into two different groups namely advanced economies and emerging economies.

With a 4.15 score, Nepal stood between slowly-advancing and rapidly advancing nations list among other countries in the emerging economies category.

Meanwhile Lithuania has led the emerging economies’ chart in IDI 2018 with a score of 4.86. Hungary, Azerbaijan, Latvia and Poland are among the other top inclusive emerging economies.

While Norway stood as the world’s most advanced economy, Iceland, Luxembourg, Switzerland and Denmark were featured as the other four top advanced economies.

IDI measures economies ‘performance based on their economic progress in various terms in addition to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP).