The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has calculated the Human Development Index (HDI) since 1990, which allows for an assessment of well-being in countries by transcending the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), while still including it. Human development covers three dimensions: 1) A long and healthy life, which is estimated through life expectancy at birth in each country, which largely reflects the health of the population. 2) A decent standard of living, which is approached through the product per person generated by each country. 3) Access to education, on which the possibility of people developing autonomous life projects depends. Therefore, the years of schooling that a child starting their basic education is expected to have, as well as the actual years of schooling completed by adults, are considered. The HDI has values ranging from zero to one, and the higher the index, the better the quality of life in that country. As can be seen, children in Morocco now have an expected schooling duration (15.1 years) that is higher than that of children in Mexico (14.5 years). In terms of income, Mexico has a per capita product that is 2.5 times that of Morocco, but in 1990 it was four times higher. Notable improvements in health, education, and product per person are aspects in which our country is stagnant. In life expectancy, Morocco managed to overtake Mexico: it had 62.4 years in 1990 and now reaches 75.3 years. The GDP per capita grew by 103 percent in Morocco and by 28 percent in Mexico. While preparing the presentation on development in both countries, I was pleasantly surprised and also faced a disheartening finding. On one hand, Morocco has significantly improved its social progress indicators in over three decades, while for Mexico, this has been a practically lost time. In Mexico, the figure went from 11.2 to 14.5 years, a gain of 29 percent. Morocco went from 5.9 to 9.3 years, an increase of 57 percent. And in the actual years of schooling among adults, Morocco went from 2.1 to 6.2, tripling its indicator, an advance of 194 percent. The UNDP classifies nations into four levels: low HDI if it is below 0.55; medium HDI, with values from 0.55 to 0.699; high HDI, which ranges from 0.70 to 0.799, and very high HDI for countries that reach or exceed 0.800. Today, both Mexico (with an HDI of 0.79) and Morocco (0.71) are considered countries with high human development, but what stands out are the trajectories of the last few decades. In 1990, when the measurement began, Morocco was a country with low HDI (0.45) and Mexico was almost with high human development (0.67). The North African country has managed to increase its HDI by 57 percent to date, while Mexico has only increased by 18 percent. Morocco progressed more than the set of Arab countries (31 percent), Latin America (21 percent), and the world average (24 percent). Morocco doubled the wealth it generates per inhabitant, while we barely produce a quarter more per person. In these three and a half decades, the per capita GDP of very high HDI countries grew by 61 percent; in high HDI countries, by 245 percent; in medium HDI countries, by 214 percent; and in low HDI countries, by 40 percent. Last week I was in Rabat, invited by Mohammed V University to the colloquium “Morocco and Mexico: transatlantic borders and horizons”. In contrast, Mexico advanced less than all those groups. What allowed Morocco to leave low human development, reach medium human development at the beginning of the century, and join the high human development group this decade? Morocco expanded life expectancy by thirteen years, a strong expansion of 20.7 percent. The evidence is overwhelming: both friends and foes are growing much faster than us. It is a sad paradox that international comparisons reveal Mexico to be a stagnant economy, one that is falling behind, that is missing the train of development, and despite that, insists on preserving an economic policy that yields such mediocre results.
