The gap between the richest and poorest countries in the world is growing as human development in sub-Saharan Africa stagnates and progress in other regions accelerates, according to a human development report released on Thursday in Cape Town.

The report, entitled Beyond Scarcity: Power, Poverty and the Global Water Crisis, noted that after the first half of 1990's, Central and Eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States have recovered strongly, and the progress in East and South Asia continues to accelerates.

But sub-Saharan Africa shows no sign of improvement, principally because of the devastating effects of HIV/AIDS on life expectancy, according to the report.

It revealed that life expectancy in sub-Saharan Africa is actually shorter now than it was three years decades ago.

In the 31 countries at the bottom of the list, 28 of which are in sub-Saharan Africa. A person can hope to live on average only 46 years in the region, or 32 years less than the average life expectancy in countries of advanced human development, among which about 20 years of life expectancy are slashed off by HIV/AIDS.

The report made clear the entrenched inequality across the globe. The combined income of the 500 richest people in the world now exceeds that of the poorest 416 million people.

It said that one of the central human-development challenges ahead is to diminish tolerance for the extreme inequalities and to ensure that the rising tide of prosperity extends opportunities for many.

Introduced with the first Human Development Report in 1990, the Human Development Index assesses the state of human development through life expectancy, adult literacy and enrollment at primary, secondary and tertiary levels and income.

Source: Xinhua