The Human Capital Report, 2016 has been released

The Human Capital Report 2016

The Human Capital Report 2016 has just been released by the World Economic Forum (WEF).The Human Capital Index seeks to serve as a tool for capturing the complexity of education, employment and workforce dynamics so that various stakeholders are able to make better-informed decisions. 

Last year’s edition of the Human Capital Report explored the factors contributing to the development of an Educated, Productive and Healthy Workforce. This year’s edition deepens the analysis by focusing on a number of key issues that can support better design of education policy and future workforce planning.

The World Economic Forum’s Human Capital Report ranks 130 countries on how well they are developing and deploying their talent. The index takes a life-course approach to human capital, evaluating the levels of education, skills and employment available to people in five distinct age groups, starting from under 15 years to over 65 years. The aim is to assess the outcome of past and present investments in human capital and offer insight into what a country’s talent base looks like today and how it is likely to evolve into the future. This year’s edition also explores new data sources to reveal fresh insights on skills diversity, the gig economy and talent mobility.

As far as Sub Saharan Africa continent is concerned, a cluster of countries, including Mauritius (76),  Ghana (84),  South Africa (88) and  Zambia (90), scored between the range of 60–70% in their effective overall human capital potential utilization—placing them ahead of the Middle East and North Africa regional average and on a par with the lower half of the Latin American and East Asia and the Pacific regions.

On the other hand, East African countries need to further improvise their Human Capital given that Uganda has been ranked at 99th scoring 59.28%, Kenya has been ranked at 102 scoring 57.90%, Rwanda has been ranked at 110th scoring 56.27%, Tanzania has been ranked at 116th scoring 53.56% while Mozambique ranks 115th, Ethiopia 119th and Nigeria stands at 127th.

Commenting on the WEF's Human Capital 2016 Report, Global Investors Consultation Centre (GICC) Founder & CEO, Ms. Shainul Bhanji observed that much needs to be done to improvise the skills diversity of the human capital at all levels. Vocational as well as Professional institutions in all fields be it in Health sector or Construction sector should design their programs to meet the market needs besides being proactive.