By MIRANDA LA ROSE Tuesday, July 10 2012

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Bhoe Tewarie...

SANGRE GRANDE and Mayaro/Rio Claro are among the poorest areas in this country with the lowest annual household income and lowest levels of education according to the newly launched Trinidad and Tobago National Human Development Index 2012 (NHDI).

Sangre Grande has the lowest secondary and higher education attainment rate and the highest adolescent fertility rate at 75.2 per 1,000 women. On the positive side, San Fernando has the highest annual household income per capita and highest secondary and higher education attainment. Tobago is rated as having “the lowest household income per capita per year.”

Crime and violence are covered in the atlas under eight broad areas.

The information contained in the newly-launched NHDI atlas, Dr Bhoe Tewarie Minister of Planning and Sustainable Development said yesterday at the Hyatt Regency, Port-of-Spain, “can support better decisions with a more targeted focus.” Statistics were as recent as 2010.

“We are able to identify clearly,” Tewarie said, “the regions where poverty is highest or lowest, or where crime is more of a problem, or is perceived to be.” Discrepancies among the various regions, he said “permit policy makers to ask questions about how resources are allocated to tackle national issues.”

The atlas revealed that persons surveyed on their confidence in the police to control crime reported high levels of no confidence in the police. Police Western Division recorded the highest percentage of residents directly affected by criminal activity - 52.1 percent. Tobago Division experienced the lowest percentage (7.9). “At least one person within each family living in the Western Division and the Port-of-Spain Division experienced crime within 2009,” the atlas stated.

In 2009, the highest level of sexual assault was in Police Northern Division and the Eastern Division recorded the highest percentage of domestic abuse. North Eastern Division recorded the highest frequency of crimes committed.

The 182-page NHDI atlas, the first of its kind published by the Central Statistical Office with funding from the United Nations Development Programme was developed to measure the level of human development in TT and its sub-regions.

It measured the average achievements in long and healthy life dimension measured by the percentage of the population suffering from chronic illness; a knowledge dimension measured by primary and secondary education attainment rate, and secondary and higher educational attainment rate and the decent standard of living dimension measured by using annual household income per capita.

Of the four indicators used, Point Fortin ranked the highest in primary and secondary education attainment and had the lowest percentage of the population with chronic illness. Mayaro and Rio Claro had the lowest performance in primary and secondary education attainment.