DEVELOPMENT

Dear Reader
Since the moment when Estonia restored its independence 22 years ago, we have almost always been on
our way. On our way back to the West. To Europe. To the world. Back to the company of states that are
free, wealthy and determine their own fates.
On this road, we have used the aquis communitaire, that is, the chapters of the European Union’s accession
plan, to measure our capability. We occupied an important place on the roadmap established by NATO;
years later, we adjusted ourselves to the Maastricht criteria, which determined if we were mature enough for
the euro area. Through it all, we have been interested in knowing who is ahead of us and who lags behind.
Now these countless interim finishes and accessions are starting to fade from memory. That’s the way
it should be, because we have arrived in the West, in Europe and in the world, and are among the most
developed states in the world.
We regard the fact that we belong to all the organisations that are important to us with calm presumption.
The desire to measure and compare is part of human nature. This is also true in Estonia, where
most of us have participated directly in the impressive progress of the state and the society.
I have nothing against rankings, if they remain within the limits of science and common sense.
After all, without making comparisons, we cannot find out what we have done well and where we need to
make an extra effort. All the more because many of the charts are also tracked by those whose attention
and favourable predisposition we require. For example, the Index of Economic Freedom says more to
companies that are planning foreign investments than a glossy ad, paid for by the state, in a business
newspaper with a global circulation.
The best rankings are those which are comprised of a great number of fundamental components. In
the developed world, the assessment of a population’s level of education has not been based on the rate of
literacy for a long time, but rather on lifelong learning and tertiary education. Continued instability in the
euro area and elsewhere has prompted a critical assessment of debt levels, the percentage of social costs
and GDP ratios. Thus, it has turned out that some states that were considered to be fairly wealthy based on
previous calculations are actually lagging behind, because their high rankings were the result of borrowed
wealth, rather than sustainable policies.
In order to adequately discern Estonia’s position in a comparison with the other nations of the
world, we must look behind the scenes of the international rating industry. In this way we can determine
which is wheat and which is chaff. This is the topic that this Estonian Human Development Report
dissects, familiarising us with the backgrounds of the rankings that, based on their methodologies,
are most reliable, and therefore, also worth taking seriously. Estonia’s position in this international
comparison allows each one of us to come to objective conclusions about the road we have taken to date
and the choices that await us.
Kadriorg, 22 April 2013
Toomas Hendrik Ilves
President of the Republic of Estonia
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Estonian Human Development Report 2012/2013