It seems reasonable to think that the US trade
embargo against Cuba would impact the island's human development. Small
countries cannot provide all of their own needs, so they must rely on imports
to fill those needs. They must also rely on exports to pay for those imports.
The United Nations compiles data on most
countries in their Human Development Index (HDI). The HDI gives a macro level
indication of each country's standard of living, or the well being of its
people. The index is built from data on economic income, health and education.
By comparing Cuba's HDI to its neighbours and
the rest of the world, we can see if it has been lagging, and this can suggest
the amount of impact the embargo might have. By comparing the growth rate of
Cuba's HDI to its neighbours and the rest of the world, we can see if it is
being restrained and perhaps estimate the degree of restraint.
The UN's 2011 HDI report includes the country
rankings as well as the growth rates (higher is better in both cases).
Here is the data:
Cuba's HDI Level vs Dominican Republic
Cuba Dominican Rep.
1985 .665
.549
1990 .677
.577
1995 .646
.608
2000 .681
.640
2005 .725
.658
2010 .773
.686
Sources:
http://hdrstats.undp.org/images/explanations/CUB.pdf
http://hdrstats.undp.org/images/explanations/DOM.pdf
Cuba started the
period with a moderate HDI level of 0.665. Meanwhile, Dominican Republic began
somewhat lagging at 0.549 even without being under embargo and operating in a
generally improving political climate that included a return to democracy.
Furthermore, Cuba has maintained its lead throughout the entire period.
For 2011, Cuba’s HDI of 0.776 lies in the High
Human Development category, and ranks 51st in the UN’s world of 187 countries.
As an initial comparator, neighbouring Dominican Republic scores 0.689, in the
Medium Human Development category, and ranks nearly twice as far down in the
world list at 98th. As the following table shows, both have been rising
steadily almost as long as the data have been tracked (since 1985 for Cuba;
earlier for others). The only exception was a brief decline in 1995 after the
Soviet collapse.
Average Annual Growth Rate
of HDI
1990-2011 2000-2011
Cuba 0.65% 1.19%
Latin America &
Carib 0.76% 0.66%
World 0.66% 0.66%
High HDI Group 0.64% 0.70%
Source:
http://hdr.undp.org/en/media/HDR_2011_EN_Table2.pdf
As with economic growth, Human Development growth
tends to cluster according to its level. For example, high income economies
such as the US and Japan tend to have lower growth rates than low income
economies. As an analogy, where there is more room to grow, the growth rate is
higher. Likewise, countries with lower levels of Human Development tend to have
faster HDI growth. For this reason, comparisons are usually made between
countries in the same category.
So in Cuba’s case, it is compared with countries
in the High HDI category. And in this comparison, not only does its HDI growth
seem to have gone unimpeded in the last decade, but Cuba’s growth rate is
highest in the High Human Development group. Cuba has once again turned out a
counter-intuitive result: that the US embargo has not impeded its HDI growth.
