Armenia behind Turkey, Georgia in human development

PanARMENIAN.Net - Despite ranking in the "very high" human development group, Armenia trails Turkey and Georgia regionally and shows gaps in all sub-index categories.

The Luys Foundation has analyzed the Human Development Report 2025 published by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

The report presents the Human Development Index (HDI) data for 2023 and revises figures from previous years that appeared in last year's edition.

According to the report, Armenia’s HDI score in 2023 was 0.811, placing it 69th among 193 countries and categorizing it as a country with “very high human development.” However, Armenia’s score is 0.103 points below the average for this group and significantly lags behind the global averages across all three sub-indices. Moreover, since Armenia’s score only slightly exceeds the minimum threshold for this group by 0.011, and just four out of 74 countries in the same group rank lower, the foundation concludes that Armenia lies within a “risk zone.”

Among five countries in the region, Armenia ranks third in human development, behind Turkey and Georgia.

Compared to 2022, Armenia's HDI improved, mainly due to the economic sub-index’s rise, driven by a 31.4% increase in gross national income per capita. This growth is largely attributed to the appreciation of the Armenian dram. Nevertheless, the score remains below the global average, and Armenia continues to be part of the high development group thanks to the HDI’s non-economic components.

Social inequality in Armenia negatively affected the overall index by 8.4%. However, this impact is relatively low due to the relatively affordable healthcare and education services in the country, which partially offset the effects of inequality.

In the “gender development” and “gender inequality” indices, Armenia holds the top regional position, thanks to women’s political participation and educational attainment.

When environmental sustainability is considered, Armenia falls behind only Georgia in the human development index.

Still, Armenia significantly underperforms compared to the average scores for “very high” development countries in both the gender inequality and inequality-adjusted HDI rankings.