At a global level, only two regions—North America and Western Europe—have developed more than 70% of their human capital versus the ideal score. Three regions—Eastern Europe and Central Asia, East Asia and the Pacific and Latin America and the Caribbean—score in the 60% to 70% range, while the Middle East and North Africa, South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa have yet to cross the 60% threshold. However, as illustrated in Figure 4 below, there is a wide variety of effective human capital utilization in every world region, with both success stories and underperforming countries in each.

Figure 4: Global Human Capital Index 2017, by region, income and political grouping