The UN Development Programme's annual Human Development Reports publish this index which takes into account life expectancy, adult literacy, school enrollment, per capita GDP. In 1998 the highest ranking countries were Canada (0.935), Norway (0.934), USA (0.929) [that should make some folks on Wiki very mad :=)], Australia (0.929), and Iceland (0.927). The bottom countries are Sierra Leone (0.252), Niger (0.293), Burkina Faso (0.303), Ethiopia (0.309), and Burundi (0.321).

Arab states have an aggregate index of 0.635 as opposed to 0.758 for Latin America and 0.777 for Eastern Europe and the former USSR.

Or course, take these and all statistics with a grain of salt.

See the results for other countries at http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0778562.html