The UN Human Development Index 2006 ranks Nepal 138th in the list of 177 nations, the country slipping by two places from its position of 136 in 2005. With the HDI value of 0.527, as compared to the South Asia average of 0.605, Nepal has been ranked the worst country to live in South Asia.

The HDI, according to the UN, “provides a composite measure of three dimensions of human development: living a long and healthy life (measured by life expectancy), being educated (measured by adult literacy and enrolment at the primary, secondary and tertiary level) and having a decent standard of living (measured by purchasing power parity, PPP, income)”. Nepal ranks 129th in terms of average life expectancy (62.1 years); 118th in terms of adult literacy rate (51.4 per cent); 137th in terms of enrolment ratio (57 per cent) at all levels of education; and 147th in terms of GDP per capita ($1,409).

Only 73.46 per cent households have access to clean drinking water and the country falls well short of providing a minimum of 20 litres of clean water that each person needs per day. Similarly, only 35 per cent of Nepalis have access to good sanitation. Concentration of good heal-thcare facilities in urban centres has also resulted in high mortality among rural people, who make the bulk of the populace: As compared to the Central Development Region with a hospital bed for every 2,642 persons, Far West (5,997) and Mid West (7,886) regions languish far behind. Also, immunisation coverage among children, at 59.6 per cent, is far from satisfactory.

In education, there is a great gender disparity with educated women comprising only 55.7 per cent of all educated men. Here, too, the urban-rural divide is stark: 63.9 per cent of adults in the hills of the Central Development Region are educated, only 31.2 per cent in the Mid West. As regards income, the top quintile rake in Rs. 36,415; the bottom quintile, Rs. 5,681. Similarly, per capita GDP ranges from an average of $2,083 in the Central hills to $879 in the Mid West hills.

Nepal’s dismal performance is largely the result of ham-fisted decentralisation efforts of successive governments. Though decentralisation was initiated nearly a century ago, it has failed to take root. Emphasis on sectoral approach as against resource allocation as per the regional needs has meant that grassroots level have received little help. The result: Poor infrastructure, inaccessibility of outlying areas, marginalisation of ethnic and minority groups, concentration of industrial bases in the cities and disproportionate sharing of revenue. Devolution of responsibilities, but neither the authority nor resources to carry them out, has hobbled decentralisation efforts at most rural outposts. Insurgency has been blamed for everything gone wrong with Nepal in the past decade. It’s important to note the robust performance of the war-ravaged Sri Lanka — where over 60,000 have lost their lives in over three decades of conflict — which debuts in the Index at 93, the best-ranking among South Asian countries.