For a country to be classified as “developed”, it must meet certain standards and posses specific, necessary features. Chief among these features is the availability of modern amenities such as good roads, housing, stable electricity, telecommunication infrastructure, hospitals etc.

Beyond these, other yardsticks also measure how functional and stable the government is, the availability of good jobs, accessibility to health and social services, personal freedom, the effectiveness of educational systems, etc.

Over the years, the United Nation’s Human Development Index (HDI) has become the most universally used tool for measuring countries’ developing status. According to the United Nations Development Programme, “the HDI was created to emphasize that people and their capabilities should be the ultimate criteria for assessing the development of a country, not economic growth alone.”

Among the indicators tracked by the HDI are: life expectancy, adult literacy rate, access to the internet and income inequality. These indicators are always in the following order: 0.00 and 1.00. Countries that score very low on these indicators (i.e., 0-0.55) have low human development ratio. The ones that score between 0.55 and 0.70 are medium human development countries. Lastly, those with scores of between 0.70 and 0.80 are said to have high human development ratio. Meanwhile, countries with high human development ratios score between 0.80-1.0.

Below are the 10 most developed African countries, based on the latest UN’s Human Development Index report. Do note that African countries usually rank low compared to the global average. For instance, Mauritius, Africa’s most developed country, was ranked 66 out of 189 countries.