CUBA was praised yesterday by the president of the World Bank in recognition of the Caribbean island's achievement in providing some of Latin America's highest standards of health care and education without a penny of foreign funding.

"Cuba has done a great job on education and health and if you judge the country by education and health they've done a terrific job," the bank's chief, James Wolfensohn, said at a press conference in Washington.

"So I have no hesitation in acknowledging that they've done a good job, and it does not embarrass me to do it. They should be congratulated for what they have done," he added.

Statistics in the bank's World Development Indicators report, issued during its spring meetings over the weekend, show that Cubans live longer than other Latin Americans, including residents of the US Commonwealth of Puerto Rico.

At the same time, the island's literacy levels are only equalled by the middle-income nations of Argentina and Uruguay.

The bank's data shows life expectancy in Cuba is 76 years. Among Latin American countries, that is second only to Costa Rica at 77. It equals the showcase market economy of Chile, while it is ahead of Puerto Rico at 73 years; Argentina, Uruguay and Mexico, where the average person lives for 72 years; and Brazil, which lags at 67 years.

Infant mortality in Cuba is seven deaths per 1,000 live births, much lower than the rest of Latin America.

Only 3 per cent of Cuban males above the age of 15 years cannot read, a literacy rate that is five times better than Brazil and 16 times ahead of Haiti, the data shows.

Cuba withdrew from the World Bank and its sister lending agency, the International Monetary Fund, in 1959, less than a year after the revolution led by Fidel Castro. It still remains outside these so-called Bretton Woods institutions, along with North Korea, Libya and Burma.

At last month's World Bank Summit of the Americas in Quebec, Mr Wolfensohn said the Bank pledged support for Latin American and Caribbean countries, proposing $12 to $16 billion in loans and credits for the region over the next three years.

"About one in three people in Latin America and the Caribbean lives on less than $2 a day," he said, emphasising that it was up to governments to determine the priorities for World Bank loans.

He singled out health and education for special attention. "A full-scale attack on poverty requires investments in health care and education, to build the human resources countries need to compete." http://www.thescotsman.co.uk/world.cfm?id=68516