THIS IS A DISCUSSION BOARD SO THERE IS NO NEED FOR A HEADING
OR A COVER PAGE
Defining and measuring human development
Attempts to define and measure human development
We will start by considering the view of Amartya Sen explained in his book “Development as Freedom”
Amartya Sen is one of the most influential thinkers of the latter half of the 20th Century. His ideas have
had a huge impact on the way the international community thinks about development and approaches
development. In his book “Development as Freedom” he asks the question, what is a developed country? According to Sen, development should be measured by how much freedom a country has since without
freedom people cannot make the choices that allow them to help themselves and others. He defines
freedom as an interdependent bundle of:
1) political freedom and civil rights,
2) economic freedom including opportunities to get credit,
3) social opportunities: arrangements for health care, education, and other social services,
4) transparency guarantees, by which Sen means interactions with others, including the government, are
characterized by a mutual understanding of what is offered and what to expect,
5) protective security, in which Sen includes unemployment benefits, famine and emergency relief, and
general safety nets.
The Human Development Index
The idea of human development is subjective. What one society sees as progress in human development may not be considered progress by others. Equal education for women is not accepted by conservative
Islamic societies. The abolition of capital punishment and guaranteed basic health services, are not
accepted by some developed countries. Quality of life may be far more important than earning more
money e.g. Europeans enjoy longer holidays than Americans.
The Human Development Index (HDI) is an attempt to measure progress in human development. As you go through the steps below, you should note what indicators the Human Development Index uses to
measure progress in human development, what the trends are in these indicators, what factors may make the use of average cash income per capita misleading for poor countries, where the USA ranks overall,
which indicator the USA is weakest in, which country has been most often top in the last few years, and
from which continent do the poorest performing countries come from.
The following link which takes you to the main Human Development Index (HDI) website.
http://hdr.undp.org/en/content/human-development-index-hdi
Here is a summary that highlights the main points being made on this page.
“The HDI was created to emphasize that people and their capabilities should be the ultimate criteria for assessing the development of a country, not economic growth alone…….
The Human Development Index (HDI) is a summary measure of average achievement in key dimensions of human development: a long and healthy life, being knowledgeable and having a decent standard of living…………..
The health dimension is assessed by life expectancy at birth…………. The education component of the HDI
is measured by mean of years of schooling for adults aged 25 years and expected years of schooling for
children of school entering age……………
The standard of living dimension is measured by gross national income per capita ….…….(but takes into
account) the considerable amount of unmeasured subsistence and nonmarket production in economies
close to the minimum that is not captured in the official data………………”
Now take a look at the latest figures by accessing the following link
http://hdr.undp.org/en/content/table-1-human-development-index-and-its-components
Now you’ll take a look at the trends over the past 10 years. These are taken from the World Bank data site as they produce graphs that make it easier to see the trends.
Average income
http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GNP.PCAP.PP.CD/countries/1W-CN-US?display=graph
Life Expectancy
http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.LE00.IN/countries/1W-US-EU-IN-CN?display=graph
Completion of Primary Schooling (Note this is not exactly the same as the HDI but is also indicative of
trends in education and not all countries provide data)
http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SE.PRM.CMPT.ZS/countries/1W-EU-US?display=graph
The topic is Promoting Human Development, you have to answer/elaborate on
the following points:
How would you define human development?
What are the 2 main categories or indicators of Human Development?
The difference between a development bank and banks who’s aim is to promote eco economic
stability.
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