According to the most recent data available from the World Health Organization, 15 (43%) of 35 African countries and 4 (25%) of 16 Eastern Mediterranean countries had an adult literacy rate of less than 60% (Table 1). Countries with a low gross national income per capita did not necessarily rank comparatively low in adult literacy (Table 1). This was true when comparing countries within the same region (e.g., Madagascar, the United Republic of Tanzania and the Democratic Republic of the Congo in Africa, and Jordan and the Syrian Arab Republic in the Eastern Mediterranean region). It was also true when comparing countries between the 2 regions; for example, Lesotho had an adult literacy rate of 82.2% and a gross national income per capita of $3410, whereas Morocco had a literacy rate of 52.3% and a gross national income per capita of $4360.
Table 1
Of the 119 countries for which data on adult literacy rates were available, 9 of the 10 countries with the lowest rates were in either Africa (Senegal, Sierra Leone, Benin, Guinea, Niger, Chad, Burkino Faso and Mali) or the Eastern Mediterranean region (Afghanistan). The country 10th from the bottom was Bangladesh, with an adult literacy rate of 42.6% and a gross national income per capita of $2090). — Mark O. Baerlocher MD, Toronto, Ont.