In the 2010 Human Development Report a further Inequality-adjusted Human Development Index (IHDI) was introduced. While the simple HDI remains useful, it stated that "the IHDI is the actual level of human development (accounting for inequality)" and "the HDI can be viewed as an index of “potential” human development (or the maximum IHDI that could be achieved if there were no inequality)".[3]
Countries fall into four broad human development categories: Very High Human Development, High Human Development, Medium Human Development and Low Human Development.
Because of the new methodology adopted since the 2010 Human Development Report, the new reported HDI figures appear lower than the HDI figures in previous reports.
From 2007 to 2010, the first category was referred to as developed countries, and the last three are all grouped in developing countries. The original "high human development" category has been split into two as above in the report for 2007.
Some older groupings (high/medium/low income countries) that were based on the gross domestic product (GDP) in purchasing power parity (PPP) per capita have been replaced by another index based on the gross national income (GNI) in purchasing power parity per capita.
The country with the largest decrease in HDI since 1998 is Zimbabwe, falling from 0.514 in 1998 by 0.140 to 0.374 in 2010. The country with the largest decrease since 2009 is Cape Verde, which decreased by 0.170.
The only year without a Human Development Report since 1990 was 2012. The latest report was launched in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia on 14 December 2015.[2]
^The UN does not recognize the Republic of China (Taiwan) as a sovereign state. The HDI report does not include Taiwan as part of the People's Republic of China when calculating China's figures (see [10]). Taiwan's government calculated its HDI to be 0.882, based on 2010 new methodology of UNDP.[11]
^"2016中華民國人類發展指數 (HDI)"(Excel) (in Chinese). Directorate General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics, Executive Yuan, R.O.C. 2016. Retrieved 2016-01-04.