Afghanistan’s development indicators

As NATO is getting ready to pull its troops out of Afghanistan, a spin game is on: those who would like NATO to be seen in a positive light, are focussing on positive anecdotes, such as girls attending school, others point to the chaos and destruction that has unfortunately plagued Afghanistan fort he past three decades.

Here is how Afghanistan fares on human development indicators. See the graphs and come to your own conclusions:

Life expectancy

The average number of years a newborn is expected to live with current mortality patterns remaining the same.

 

 

Mortality rate, infant (per 1,000 live births)

Infant mortality rate is the number of infants dying before reaching one year of age, per 1,000 live births in a given year. Source: Harmonized estimates of the World Health Organization, UNICEF, and the World Bank, based mainly on household surveys, censuses, and vital registration, supplemented by World Bank estimates based on household surveys and vital registration.

 

 

Mortality rate under 5

The probability per 1,000 that a newborn baby will die before reaching age 5.

 

 

Availability of contraceptives

Contraceptive prevalence rate is the percentage of women who are practicing, or whose sexual partners are practicing, any form of contraception. It is usually measured for married women ages 15-49 only. Source: Household surveys, including Demographic and Health Surveys by Macro International and Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys by UNICEF.

Average number of births per woman

 

Immunization, measles (% of children ages 12-23 months)

Child immunization measures the percentage of children ages 12-23 months who received vaccinations before 12 months or at any time before the survey. A child is considered adequately immunized against measles after receiving one dose of vaccine. Source: World Health Organization and United Nations Children's Fund.

 

Primary completion rate, total (% of relevant age group)

Primary completion rate is the percentage of students completing the last year of primary school. It is calculated by taking the total number of students in the last grade of primary school, minus the number of repeaters in that grade, divided by the total number of children of official graduation age. Source: United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Institute for Statistics.