International rankings
- Human Development Index 2007: Rank 42nd out of 177 countries
- Index of Economic Freedom 2008: Rank 35th out of 157 countries
- Reporters Without Borders' Worldwide Press Freedom Index 2008: Rank 7th (along with 5 other countries) out of 173 countries
- Global Competitiveness Report 2008–2009: Rank 46th out of 157 countries
- Corruption Perceptions Index 2008: 52nd out of 180 countries
- Democracy Index 2008: Rank 44th out of 167 countries
- Environmental Performance Index 2008: Rank 17th out of 149 countries
- Global Peace Index 2009: Rank 24th out of 144 countries
- Programme for International Student Assessment 2006: Rank 27th out of 57 jurisdictions
The Human Development Index (HDI) is a statistic composite index of life expectancy, education, and per capita income indicators, which are used to rank countries into four tiers of human development. A country scores a higher HDI when the lifespan is higher, the education level is higher, and the GNI (PPP) per capita is higher. It was developed by Pakistani economist Mahbub ul Haq, with help from Gustav Ranis of Yale University and Meghnad Desai of the London School of Economics, and was further used to measure a country's development by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP)'s Human Development Report Office.
The Index of Economic Freedom is an annual index and ranking created in 1995 by The Heritage Foundation and The Wall Street Journal to measure the degree of economic freedom in the world's nations. The creators of the index took an approach similar to Adam Smith's in The Wealth of Nations, that "basic institutions that protect the liberty of individuals to pursue their own economic interests result in greater prosperity for the larger society".
Reporters Without Borders (RWB), also known under its original name Reporters Sans Frontières (RSF), is an international non-profit, non-governmental organization based in Paris that conducts political advocacy on issues relating to freedom of information and freedom of the press.
