The rise of the South is radically reshaping the world of the 21st century, with developing nations driving economic growth, lifting hundreds of millions of people from poverty, and propelling billions more into a new global middle class, says the United Nations Development Programme’s (UNDP) 2013 Human Development Report.

The latest figures and rankings released in the 2013 HDR include life expectancy, education and income. Norway once again comes out top, with Burkina Faso, Chad, Mozambique, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Niger propping up the bottom. But the report also includes a table on trends in the HDI over the past three decades – which makes more favourable reading for poorer African nations.

African MDG human development index

Seven sub-Saharan African countries are among the states with the fastest average growth in human development over the past 12 years. But the report also includes a table on trends in the HDI over the past three decades – which makes more favourable reading for poorer African nations.

After languishing at the back of the pack throughout the 1980s and 90s, sub-Saharan Africa was second only to south Asia in terms of annual average HDI growth in the 2000s (1.47% v 1.6%) – and outstripped the Arab states (1.07%), east Asia (1.43%), Europe and central Asia (0.77%), and Latin America (0.74%).

And although Niger has the lowest human development score in the world, it had the 10th fastest average human development growth between 2000 and 2012 (2.2%), behind Afghanistan (3.91%), Sierra Leone (3.29%), Ethiopia (3.09%), Rwanda (2.73%), Timor-Leste (2.71%), Angola (2.56%), Mozambique (2.37%), Burundi (2.31%) and Burma (2.23%).

From Data journalism and data visualisations from the Guardian