Norway is ranked first and Russia slid from 55th to 60th as the best country in which to live, according to a United Nations report released
Wednesday.
However, officials at the UN Development Program, which compiled the annual report on 173 countries, said the quality of life in Russia was steadily rising and had only dropped in this year's report because other countries had progressed more quickly.
"The changes in ranking are due to other countries' actions rather than a slip in Russia's performance," UNDP spokesman Nikolai Dyuzhev said.
The Human Development Index measures a country's achievements in terms of life expectancy, educational attainment and adjusted real income.
Norway led the list for a second year, followed by Sweden, Canada, Belgium, Australia and the United States. Russia is topped by the former Soviet republics of Estonia (42), Lithuania (49), Latvia (53) and Belarus (56). Ukraine (80) is sandwiched between Kazakhstan (79) and Georgia (81).
>From 168th to 173rd place on the index are Ethiopia, Burkina Faso,
Mozambique, Burundi, Niger and Sierra Leone.
The rankings were based on indices reflecting the situation in 2000, the latest year for which the statistics are available.
"Since than an economic growth process has been launched, so there should be
a change in Russia's position quite soon," said Blanche de Bonneval, deputy resident representative for the UNDP in Russia.
The report said Russia's ranking has slipped by 20 places since 1990, when 135 nations were ranked.
The comparatively low ranking does not mean that Russia was a poor performer
on all indices; for instance, the report rated literacy among the population
aged 15 and above at 99.6 percent.